The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces that the first release candidate of PostgreSQL 18 is now available for download. As a release candidate, PostgreSQL 18 RC 1 will be mostly identical to the initial release of PostgreSQL 18, though some more fixes may be applied prior to the general availability of PostgreSQL 18.
The planned date for the general availability of PostgreSQL 18 is September 25, 2025. Please see the "Release Schedule" section for more details.
To upgrade to PostgreSQL 18 RC 1 from earlier versions of PostgreSQL, you will
need to use a major version upgrade strategy, e.g. pg_upgrade or
pg_dump / pg_restore. For more information, please visit the documentation
section on upgrading:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/18/upgrading.html
Several bug fixes were applied for PostgreSQL 18 during the Beta 3 period. These include:
vacuumdb --missing-stats-only.pg_trgm indexes after using pg_upgrade.For a detailed list of fixes, please visit the open items page.
This is the first release candidate for PostgreSQL 18. Unless an issue is discovered that warrants a delay or to produce an additional release candidate, PostgreSQL 18 should be made generally available on September 25, 2025.
For further information please see the Beta Testing page.