We’re thrilled to announce the General Availability (GA) of PostgreSQL 18 on Azure Database for PostgreSQL flexible server. This release marks Azure’s fastest turnaround ever between community release and managed service availability - bringing PostgreSQL 18 to Azure customers within weeks of the open-source GA.

With PostgreSQL 18 now generally available, Azure Postgres users gain full production readiness with worldwide regional availability, in-place major version upgrade support, Microsoft Entra ID integration, and Query Store with Index Tuning. Together, these capabilities make it easier than ever to adopt the latest PostgreSQL innovations on a secure, fully managed cloud platform.

What’s New with PostgreSQL 18 GA on Azure

PostgreSQL 18 builds on a foundation of performance, scalability, and developer efficiency. With the GA release, Azure brings these new capabilities together in a managed, enterprise-grade environment ready for production workloads.

Beyond these GA features, PostgreSQL 18 brings significant under-the-hood improvements such as asynchronous I/O (AIO) for faster read performance, enhanced vacuuming and indexing, OAuth 2.0 support, and more efficient partitioning - all now supported in Azure’s managed environment.

Azure Database for PostgreSQL also now supports over 80 extensions for PostgreSQL 18, including pgvector, POSTGIS, pg_cron, and pg_stat_statements. The engineering team continues to expand this list, ensuring customers can use the same ecosystem they rely on in open-source PostgreSQL with enterprise-grade reliability on Azure.

Why Upgrade to PostgreSQL 18

PostgreSQL 18 introduces a wide range of performance and developer experience enhancements that are now fully available to Azure users:

• Performance and Scalability: Improved query execution with asynchronous I/O, optimized vacuuming, and skip scans for better index reuse.
• Security and Access Control: Centralized authentication through Microsoft Entra ID and OAuth 2.0 for enterprise-grade access management.
• Developer Productivity: Extended SQL/JSON support, enhanced EXPLAIN diagnostics, and new runtime statistics views for deeper insights.
• Operational Simplicity: Query Store and Index Tuning streamline workload analysis and reduce manual optimization effort.

Whether you’re modernizing existing workloads or deploying new applications, PostgreSQL 18 on Azure gives you the latest open-source capabilities with the reliability, automation, and security of a managed cloud service.

How to Get Started

You can now deploy or upgrade to PostgreSQL 18 directly through the Azure Portal, Azure CLI, or ARM templates. Here are a few quick CLI examples to get started:

1. Create a new PostgreSQL 18 server

az postgres flexible-server create \ --resource-group myresourcegroup \ --name mypg18server \ --location eastus \ --version 18

2. Enable Microsoft Entra ID Authentication

az postgres flexible-server update \ --resource-group myresourcegroup \ --name mypg18server \ --microsoft-entra-auth Enabled \ --password-auth Enabled

3. Upgrade an existing PostgreSQL server to version 18 (In-place upgrade)

az postgres flexible-server upgrade \ --name mypg17server \ --resource-group myresourcegroup \ --target-server-version 18

Once deployed, you can connect using familiar tools like PSQL, or VS Code Extension for Postgres to start exploring PostgreSQL 18’s latest features.

For detailed feature documentation and guidance, refer to the official PostgreSQL 18 release notes.

To share feedback or report issues, visit our Azure PostgreSQL Feedback Forum.