As enthusiasts and promoters of cutting-edge technologies, we are pleased to announce news that is already part of our technology radar: the PostgreSQL Global Development Group has officially released PostgreSQL 18. This new version of the world's most advanced open-source database comes with substantial improvements in performance, scalability and security, reaffirming why it is one of our preferred technologies.
The release, scheduled for 25 September 2025, marks an important milestone for the community of developers and database administrators. Below we explore the most notable features that make PostgreSQL 18 an essential update.
Key innovation: An asynchronous I/O engine for superior performance
The most revolutionary new feature in PostgreSQL 18 is its new asynchronous I/O (Input/Output) subsystem (AIO). This architectural change allows the database to handle multiple data read requests concurrently instead of sequentially. In performance tests, this improvement has been shown to triple speed in certain operations, such as sequential and bitmap scans.
Faster upgrades and optimised post-upgrade performance
One of the challenges in major version upgrades was the need to regenerate query planner statistics, which could temporarily degrade performance. PostgreSQL 18 solves this by allowing statistics to be preserved during the upgrade, ensuring optimal performance from the first moment. In addition, the pg_upgrade tool has been optimised to significantly speed up the migration process, especially on databases with a large number of objects.
Improvements for developers: more power and flexibility
Virtual generated columns: It is now possible to define columns whose values are calculated at query time without physical storage, optimising space and efficiency for inserts and updates. uuidv7() function: The inclusion of this function allows generating time-ordered UUIDs, which drastically improves indexing performance and cache strategies. Temporal constraints: The ability to define primary, unique and foreign keys over time ranges is introduced, a long-awaited feature for applications that handle data with temporal dimensions.
Reinforced security and modern authentication
In line with security best practices, PostgreSQL 18 introduces support for OAuth 2.0 authentication, facilitating integration with single sign-on (SSO) systems. In addition, MD5 password authentication has been declared obsolete, recommending the use of SCRAM for greater security.
Other notable improvements
Parallel GIN index creation: The time required to create GIN indexes, used in full-text search and JSON data, is considerably reduced. Observability improvements: The EXPLAIN ANALYZE command now provides more detailed information, including buffer usage and CPU statistics, making query optimisation easier. Page checksum by default: New databases created with PostgreSQL 18 will have page checksums enabled by default for greater data integrity.
Our commitment to PostgreSQL
At our company we consider PostgreSQL a strategic technology. Its robustness, flexibility and the vibrant development of its open-source community are key reasons why we include it in our technology radar and recommend it to our clients. The arrival of PostgreSQL 18 only consolidates its position as the undisputed leader in the world of open-source databases.
For more technical details, you can consult the official release notes: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/release-18.html