PostgreSQL 17 Released

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released PostgreSQL 17, the latest major version of the world’s most advanced open source relational database.

Key improvements in PostgreSQL 17

Vacuum and memory management

PostgreSQL 17 introduces a new internal memory structure for vacuum, reducing memory consumption by up to 20× on large tables with many dead tuples. Vacuum completes faster with a smaller memory footprint across all workloads.

Bulk loading performance

COPY INTO performance has been improved significantly — up to 2× faster ingestion on large datasets thanks to optimised WAL generation and reduced lock contention.

JSON_TABLE

PostgreSQL 17 adds the SQL/JSON JSON_TABLE() function, allowing JSON data to be queried as a relational table directly in SQL without procedural code or external tools.

Logical replication of sequences

Logical replication now supports replication of sequences, making it easier to maintain standby clusters that can take over without sequence gaps after a failover.

Incremental backup

A new pg_basebackup --incremental option enables incremental backups based on WAL summary files, dramatically reducing time and I/O needed for routine backup operations.

Full release notes: postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html