September 26, 2024 - The PostgreSQL Global Development Group today announced the release of [PostgreSQL 17](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html), the latest version of the world's most advanced open source database. PostgreSQL 17 builds on decades of open source development, improving its performance and scalability while adapting to emergent data access and storage patterns. This release of PostgreSQL adds significant overall performance gains, including an overhauled memory management implementation for vacuum, optimizations to storage access and improvements for high concurrency workloads, speedups in bulk loading and exports, and query execution improvements for indexes. PostgreSQL 17 has features that benefit brand new workloads and critical systems alike, such as additions to the developer experience with the SQL/JSON `JSON_TABLE` command, and enhancements to logical replication that simplify management of high availability workloads and major version upgrades. PostgreSQL, an innovative data management system known for its reliability, robustness, and extensibility, benefits from over 25 years of open source development from a global developer community and has become the preferred open source relational database for organizations of all sizes. ### System-wide performance gains The PostgreSQL [vacuum](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/routine-vacuuming.html) process is critical for healthy operations, requiring server instance resources to operate. PostgreSQL 17 introduces a new internal memory structure for vacuum was used that consumes up to 20x less memory. This improves vacuum speed and also reduces the use of shared resources, making more available for your workload. PostgreSQL 17 continues to improve performance of its I/O layer. High concurrency workloads may see up to 2x better write throughput due to improvements with [write-ahead log](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/wal-intro.html) ([WAL](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/wal-intro.html)) processing. Additionally, the new streaming I/O interface speeds up sequential scans (reading all the data from a table) and how quickly [`ANALYZE`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-analyze.html) can update planner statistics. PostgreSQL 17 also extends its performance gains to query execution. PostgreSQL 17 improves the performance of queries with `IN` clauses that use [B-tree](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/indexes-types.html#INDEXES-TYPES-BTREE) indexes, the default index method in PostgreSQL. Additionally, [BRIN](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/brin.html) indexes now support parallel builds. PostgreSQL 17 includes several improvements for query planning, including optimizations for `NOT NULL` constraints, and improvements in processing [common table expressions](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/queries-with.html) ([`WITH` queries](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/queries-with.html)). This release adds more SIMD (Single Instruction/Multiple Data) support for accelerating computations, including using AVX-512 for the [`bit_count`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/functions-bitstring.html) function. ### Further expansion of a robust developer experience PostgreSQL was the [first relational database to add JSON support (2012)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-92-released-1415/), and PostgreSQL 17 adds to its implementation SQL/JSON standard. [`JSON_TABLE`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/functions-json.html#FUNCTIONS-SQLJSON-TABLE) is now available in PostgreSQL 17, letting developers convert JSON data into a standard PostgreSQL table. PostgreSQL 17 now supports [SQL/JSON constructors](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/functions-json.html#FUNCTIONS-JSON-CREATION-TABLE) (`JSON`, `JSON_SCALAR`, `JSON_SERIALIZE`) and [query functions](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/functions-json.html#SQLJSON-QUERY-FUNCTIONS) (`JSON_EXISTS`, `JSON_QUERY`, `JSON_VALUE`), giving developers other ways of interfacing with their JSON data. This release adds more [`jsonpath` expressions](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/functions-json.html#FUNCTIONS-SQLJSON-PATH-OPERATORS), with an emphasis of converting JSON data to a native PostgreSQL data type, including numeric, boolean, string, and date/time types. PostgreSQL 17 adds more features to [`MERGE`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-merge.html), which is used for conditional updates, including a `RETURNING` clause and the ability to update [views](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-createview.html). Additionally, PostgreSQL 17 has new capabilities for bulk loading and data exporting,including up to a 2x performance improvement when exporting large rows using the [`COPY`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-copy.html) command. `COPY` performance also has improvements when the source and destination encodings match, and includes a new option, `ON_ERROR`, that allows an import to continue even if there is an insert error. This release expands on functionality for managing data in partitions or federated on remote PostgreSQL instances. PostgreSQL 17 supports using identity columns and exclusion constraints on [partitioned tables](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/ddl-partitioning.html). With this release, the [PostgreSQL foreign data wrapper](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/postgres-fdw.html) ([`postgres_fdw`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/postgres-fdw.html)), used to execute queries on remote PostgreSQL instances, can now push `EXISTS` and `IN` subqueries to the remote server for more efficient processing. PostgreSQL 17 also includes a built-in, platform independent, immutable collation provider that's guaranteed to be immutable and provides similar sorting semantics to the `C` collation except with `UTF-8` encoding rather than `SQL_ASCII`. Using this new collation provider guarantees that your text-based queries will return the same sorted results regardless of where you run PostgreSQL. ### Logical replication enhancements for high availability and major version upgrades [Logical replication](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/logical-replication.html) is used to stream data in real-time across many use cases. However, prior to this release, users who wanted to perform a major version upgrade would have to drop [logical replication slots](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/logical-replication-subscription.html#LOGICAL-REPLICATION-SUBSCRIPTION-SLOT), which requires resynchronizing data to subscribers after an upgrade. Starting with upgrades from PostgreSQL 17, users don't have to drop logical replication slots, simplifying the upgrade process when using logical replication. PostgreSQL 17 now includes failover control for logical replication, making it more resilient when deployed in high availability environments. Additionally, PostgreSQL 17 introduces the [`pg_createsubscriber`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/app-pgcreatesubscriber.html) command-line tool for adding logical replication on a replica using physical replication. ### More options for managing security and operations PostgreSQL 17 further extends how users can manage the overall lifecycle of their database systems. There's now a new TLS option, `sslnegotiation`, that lets users perform a direct TLS handshakes when using [ALPN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-Layer_Protocol_Negotiation) (registered as `postgresql` in the ALPN directory). PostgreSQL 17 also adds the `pg_maintain` [predefined role](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/predefined-roles.html), which allows you to give users permission to execute maintenance operations. [`pg_basebackup`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/app-pgbasebackup.html), the backup utility included in PostgreSQL, now supports incremental backups and adds the [`pg_combinebackup`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/app-pgcombinebackup.html) or the backup restoration process. Additionally, [`pg_dump`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/app-pgdump.html) includes a new option called `--filter` that lets you select what objects to include when generating a dump file. PostgreSQL 17 also includes enhancements to monitoring and analysis features. [`EXPLAIN`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/sql-explain.html) now shows the time spent for I/O block reads and writes, and includes two new options: `SERIALIZE` and `MEMORY`, useful for seeing the time spent in data conversion for network transmission, and how much memory was used. PostgreSQL 17 now reports the [progress of vacuuming indexes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/progress-reporting.html#VACUUM-PROGRESS-REPORTING), and adds the [`pg_wait_events`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/view-pg-wait-events.html) that, when combined with [`pg_stat_activity`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-PG-STAT-ACTIVITY-VIEW), gives more insight into why an active session is waiting. ### Additional Features Many other new features and improvements have been added to PostgreSQL 17. Many of these may also be helpful for your use cases. Please see the [release notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html) for a complete list of new and changed features. ### About PostgreSQL [PostgreSQL](https://www.postgresql.org) is the world's most advanced open source database, with a global community of thousands of users, contributors, companies and organizations. Built on over 35 years of engineering, starting at the University of California, Berkeley, PostgreSQL has continued with an unmatched pace of development. PostgreSQL's mature feature set not only matches top proprietary database systems, but exceeds them in advanced database features, extensibility, security, and stability. ### Links * [Download](https://www.postgresql.org/download/) * [Release Notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html) * [Press Kit](https://www.postgresql.org/about/press/) * [Security Page](https://www.postgresql.org/support/security/) * [Versioning Policy](https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/) * [Follow @postgresql](https://twitter.com/postgresql) * [Donate](https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/) ## More About the Features For explanations of the above features and others, please see the following resources: * [Release Notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html) * [Feature Matrix](https://www.postgresql.org/about/featurematrix/) ## Where to Download There are several ways you can download PostgreSQL 17, including: * The [Official Downloads](https://www.postgresql.org/download/) page, with contains installers and tools for [Windows](https://www.postgresql.org/download/windows/), [Linux](https://www.postgresql.org/download/linux/), [macOS](https://www.postgresql.org/download/macosx/), and more. * [Source Code](https://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/v17.0) Other tools and extensions are available on the [PostgreSQL Extension Network](http://pgxn.org/). ## Documentation PostgreSQL 17 comes with HTML documentation as well as man pages, and you can also browse the documentation online in both [HTML](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/) and [PDF](https://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/pdf/17/postgresql-17-US.pdf) formats. ## Licence PostgreSQL uses the [PostgreSQL License](https://www.postgresql.org/about/licence/), a BSD-like "permissive" license. This [OSI-certified license](http://www.opensource.org/licenses/postgresql/) is widely appreciated as flexible and business-friendly, since it does not restrict the use of PostgreSQL with commercial and proprietary applications. Together with multi-company support and public ownership of the code, our license makes PostgreSQL very popular with vendors wanting to embed a database in their own products without fear of fees, vendor lock-in, or changes in licensing terms. ## Contacts Website * [https://www.postgresql.org/](https://www.postgresql.org/) Email * [press@postgresql.org](mailto:press@postgresql.org) ## Images and Logos Postgres, PostgreSQL, and the Elephant Logo (Slonik) are all registered trademarks of the [PostgreSQL Community Association](https://www.postgres.ca). If you wish to use these marks, you must comply with the [trademark policy](https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/trademarks/). ## Corporate Support PostgreSQL enjoys the support of numerous companies, who sponsor developers, provide hosting resources, and give us financial support. See our [sponsors](https://www.postgresql.org/about/sponsors/) page for some of these project supporters. There is also a large community of [companies offering PostgreSQL Support](https://www.postgresql.org/support/professional_support/), from individual consultants to multinational companies. If you wish to make a financial contribution to the PostgreSQL Global Development Group or one of the recognized community non-profit organizations, please visit our [donations](https://www.postgresql.org/about/donate/) page.