PostgreSQL 18 released with async I/O subsystem, performance improvements & OAuth support

PostgreSQL 18 has been released as the newest version of this open source object-relational database. The introduction of an asynchronous input/output subsystem enhances performance for key operations including sequential and bitmap heap scans, as well as vacuum processes. Benchmarks demonstrate up to three times faster performance in selected scenarios.

Following these core engine changes, PostgreSQL 18 can now retain planner statistics through major version upgrades, allowing clusters to regain expected performance levels more rapidly after an update. The pg_upgrade utility has received several enhancements, yielding shorter upgrade times, especially for databases with many tables and sequences. PostgreSQL 18 also adds “skip scan” capabilities to multicolumn B-tree indexes, enabling more queries to leverage indexes and benefit from faster execution when prefix columns lack equality conditions or when using certain OR combinations in WHERE clauses.

Building on data management advances, the release makes virtual generated columns the default, computes their values at query time, and allows logical replication for stored generated columns. Additionally, developers can now access both previous and new row values using RETURNING clauses for INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and MERGE statements.

Further changes include support for timestamp-ordered uuidv7() generation, easier and faster text processing, built-in OAuth 2.0 authentication, improved logging for logical replication conflicts, a proactive vacuum strategy, and enabling page checksums by default for new databases. Several other enhancements are also included in this release.