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+September 25, 2025 - The [PostgreSQL Global Development Group](https://www.postgresql.org)
+today announced the release of [PostgreSQL 18](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.html),
+the latest version of the world's most advanced open source database.
+
+<THEME>
+
+<QUOTE>
+
+PostgreSQL, an innovative data management system known for its reliability,
+robustness, and extensibility, benefits from nearly 30 years of open source
+development from a global developer community and has become the preferred open
+source relational database for organizations of all sizes.
+
+### Introducing asynchronous I/O
+
+PostgreSQL previously relied on operating system readahead mechanisms to accelerate data retrieval. However, because operating systems lack insight into database-specific access patterns, they cannot always anticipate what data will be required, leading to suboptimal performance in many workloads.
+
+PostgreSQL 18 introduces a new asynchronous I/O (AIO) subsystem designed to address this limitation. AIO lets PostgreSQL issue multiple I/O requests concurrently instead of waiting for each to finish in sequence. This expands existing readahead and improves overall throughput. AIO operations supported in PostgreSQL 18 include sequential scans, bitmap heap scans, and vacuum. Benchmarking has demonstrated performance gains of up to 3x in certain scenarios.
+
+The new [`io_method`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/runtime-config-resource.html#GUC-IO-METHOD) setting lets you toggle between the AIO methods, including `worker` and `io_uring` (when built with PostgreSQL, available on certain Linux systems), or you can choose to maintain the current PostgreSQL behavior with the `sync` setting. There are now more parameters to consider tuning with AIO, which you can [learn more about in the documentation](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/runtime-config-resource.html#RUNTIME-CONFIG-RESOURCE-IO).
+
+### Faster upgrades, better post-upgrade performance
+
+A key PostgreSQL feature is the generation and storage of [statistics](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/planner-stats.html) that help PostgreSQL select the most efficient query plan. Before PostgreSQL 18, these statistics didn't carry over on a [major version upgrade](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgupgrade.html), which could cause significant query performance degradations on busy systems until the [`ANALYZE`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/sql-analyze.html) finished running. PostgreSQL 18 introduces the ability to keep planner statistics through a major version upgrade, which helps an upgraded cluster reach expected performance more quickly after the upgrade.
+
+Additionally, [`pg_upgrade`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgupgrade.html), a utility that performs major version upgrades, includes several enhancements in PostgreSQL 18, such as faster upgrades when a database contains many objects like tables and sequences. This release also lets `pg_upgrade` process its checks in parallel based on the settings of the `--jobs` flag, and adds the `--swap` flag that swaps upgrade directories instead of copying, cloning, or linking files.
+
+### Query and general performance enhancements
+
+PostgreSQL 18 further accelerates query performance with features that automatically make your workloads faster. This release introduces "skip scan" lookups on [multicolumn B-tree indexes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/indexes-multicolumn.html), which improves execution time for queries that omit an `=` condition on one or more prefix index columns. It can also automatically optimize queries using `OR` or `IN (VALUES ...)` in `WHERE` clauses for faster execution. There are also numerous improvements for how PostgreSQL plans and executes table joins, from boosting the performance of hash joins to allowing merge joins to use incremental sorts.
+
+This release also builds on PostgreSQL support for hardware acceleration. PostgreSQL 18 adds support for ARM NEON and SVE CPU intrinsics for the `popcount` function, which is used by the [`bit_count`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/functions-bitstring.html) and other internal capabilities. PostgreSQL 18 also supports using x86 AVX-512 instructions for CRC32 calculations, which are used in page checksums and are also available in the new [`crc32`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/functions-binarystring.html#FUNCTIONS-BINARYSTRING-OTHER) function. Finally, PostgreSQL 18 introduces support for [NUMA awareness](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/install-make.html#CONFIGURE-OPTION-WITH-LIBNUMA) that adds basic [NUMA observability](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/view-pg-shmem-allocations-numa.html) to PostgreSQL.
+
+PostgreSQL 18 now supports parallel builds for [GIN indexes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/gin.html), joining B-tree and [BRIN indexes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/brin.html) in supporting this capability. Additionally, [materialized views](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/rules-materializedviews.html) can now use unique indexes that aren't B-trees as partition keys, expanding how you can construct materialized views.
+
+### Enhancing the developer experience
+
+PostgreSQL 18 introduces [virtual generated columns](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/sql-createtable.html#SQL-CREATETABLE-PARMS-GENERATED-STORED) that compute values at query time instead of storing them. This is now the default option for generated columns. Additionally, stored generated columns can now be logically replicated.
+
+This release adds the capability to access both the previous (`OLD`) and current (`NEW`) values in the [`RETURNING` clause](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/dml-returning.html) for `INSERT`, `UPDATE`, `DELETE` and `MERGE` commands. PostgreSQL 18 also adds UUIDv7 generation through the [`uuidv7()`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/functions-uuid.html#FUNC_UUID_GEN_TABLE) function, letting you generate random UUIDs that are timestamp-ordered to support better caching strategies. PostgreSQL 18 includes [`uuidv4()`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/functions-uuid.html#FUNC_UUID_GEN_TABLE) as an alias for `gen_rand_uuid`.
+
+PostgreSQL 18 adds [temporal constraints](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.html#RELEASE-18-CONSTRAINTS) -- constraints over ranges -- for both `PRIMARY KEY` and `UNIQUE` constraints using the `WITHOUT OVERLAPS` clause, and on `FOREIGN KEY` constraints using the `PERIOD` clause.
+
+Finally, PostgreSQL 18 makes it easier to create the schema definition of a foreign table using the definition of a local table with the [`CREATE FOREIGN TABLE ... LIKE`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/sql-createforeigntable.html) command.
+
+### Improved text processing
+
+PostgreSQL 18 makes text processing easier and faster with several new enhancements. This release adds the [`PG_UNICODE_FAST`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/locale.html#LOCALE-PROVIDERS), which accelerates lookups using the `upper` and `lower` string comparison functions, and helps speed up the new [`casefold`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/functions-string.html#FUNCTIONS-STRING-OTHER) function for case-insensitive comparisons. Additionally, PostgreSQL 18 now supports making `LIKE` comparisons over text that uses a [nondeterministic collation](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/collation.html#COLLATION-NONDETERMINISTIC), simplifying how you can perform more complex pattern matching. This release also changes [full text search](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/textsearch.html) to use the default collation provider of a cluster instead of always using libc, which may require you to reindex all [full text search](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/textsearch-tables.html#TEXTSEARCH-TABLES-INDEX) and [`pg_trgm`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgtrgm.html#PGTRGM-INDEX) indexes after running [`pg_upgrade`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgupgrade.html).
+
+### Authentication and security features
+
+PostgreSQL 18 introduces [`oauth` authentication](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/auth-oauth.html), which lets users authenticate using OAuth 2.0 mechanisms supported through PostgreSQL extensions. Additionally, PostgreSQL 18 includes validation for [FIPS mode](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgcrypto.html#PGCRYPTO-OPENSSL-SUPPORT-FUNCS), and adds the [`ssl_tls13_ciphers`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/runtime-config-connection.html#GUC-SSL-TLS13-CIPHERS) parameters for configuring server-side TLS v1.3 cipher suites.
+
+This release deprecates `md5` password authentication, which will be removed in a future release. If you require PostgreSQL password-based authentication, use [SCRAM authentication](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/auth-password.html). PostgreSQL 18 also supports SCRAM passthrough authentication with both [`postgres_fdw`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/postgres-fdw.html) and [`dblink`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/dblink.html) for authenticating to remote PostgreSQL instances.
+
+### Replication
+
+PostgreSQL 18 now supports reporting logical replication write conflicts in logs and in the [`pg_stat_subscription_stats`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-PG-STAT-SUBSCRIPTION-STATS) view. Additionally, [`CREATE SUBSCRIPTION`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/sql-createsubscription.html) now defaults to use parallel streaming for applying transactions, which can help improve performance. The [`pg_createsubscriber`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/app-pgcreatesubscriber.html) now has an `--all` flag so you can create logical replicas for all databases in an instance with a single command. PostgreSQL 18 also lets you automatically [drop idle replication slots](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/runtime-config-replication.html#GUC-IDLE-REPLICATION-SLOT-TIMEOUT) to help prevent storing too many write-ahead log files on a publisher.
+
+### Maintenance and observability
+
+PostgreSQL 18 improves its [vacuum](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/routine-vacuuming.html) strategy by proactively freezing more pages during regular vacuums, reducing overhead and helping in situations that require aggressive vacuums.
+
+PostgreSQL 18 adds more details to [`EXPLAIN`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/using-explain.html), which provides information about query plan execution, and as of this release now automatically shows how many buffers (the fundamental unit of data storage) are accessed when executing `EXPLAIN ANALYZE`. Additionally, `EXPLAIN ANALYZE` now shows how many index lookups occur during an index scan, and `EXPLAIN ANALYZE VERBOSE` includes CPU, WAL, and average read statistics. PostgreSQL 18 includes more info in [`pg_stat_all_tables`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-PG-STAT-ALL-TABLES-VIEW) on time spent on vacuum and related operations, as well as per-connection statistics on I/O and WAL utilization.
+
+### Other notable changes
+
+Databases initialized with PostgreSQL 18 [`initdb`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/app-initdb.html) now have page checksums enabled by default. This can affect upgrades from non-checksum enabled clusters, which would require you to create a new PostgreSQL 18 cluster with the `--no-data-checksums` option when using [`pg_upgrade`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/pgupgrade.html).
+
+PostgreSQL 18 also introduces a new version (3.2) of the PostgreSQL wire protocol, the first new protocol version since PostgreSQL 7.4 (2003). [`libpq`](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/libpq-connect.html) still uses version 3.0 by default while clients (e.g., drivers, poolers, proxies) add support for the new protocol version.
+
+### Additional Features
+
+Many other new features and improvements have been added to PostgreSQL 18 that
+may also be helpful for your use cases. Please see the
+[release notes](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.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/18/release-18.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/)
+* [Contact](https://www.postgresql.org/about/contact/)
+* [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/18/release-18.html)
+* [Feature Matrix](https://www.postgresql.org/about/featurematrix/)
+
+## Where to Download
+
+There are several ways you can download PostgreSQL 18, 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/v18.0)
+
+Other tools and extensions are available on the
+[PostgreSQL Extension Network](http://pgxn.org/).
+
+## Documentation
+
+PostgreSQL 18 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/18/) and [PDF](https://www.postgresql.org/files/documentation/pdf/18/postgresql-18-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 and Donations
+
+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.
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