PostgreSQL 17 released with JSON_TABLE, incremental backup, and improved memory management

PostgreSQL, the widely-used open source relational database, has unveiled its major new version, 17. Renowned for its reliability, robustness, and extensibility, PostgreSQL benefits from over 25 years of development by a global community.

Version 17 introduces substantial performance enhancements, including a revamped memory management system for vacuum operations, optimized storage access, and improvements for high concurrency workloads. The update also brings speedups in bulk loading and exports, along with query execution improvements for indexes.

New features cater to both new and critical workloads. The SQL/JSON JSON_TABLE command enhances the developer experience, while logical replication improvements simplify high availability management and major version upgrades. The backup utility now supports incremental backups and introduces the pg_combinebackup utility for reconstructing full backups. Additionally, the PostgreSQL foreign data wrapper (postgres_fdw) can now push EXISTS and IN subqueries to remote servers for better efficiency.

PostgreSQL 17 also includes numerous other features and improvements, making it a compelling upgrade for various use cases.