The second beta version of PostgreSQL 16 has been released for testing.

PostgreSQL 16 Beta 2 Released!

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces that the second beta release of PostgreSQL 16 is now  available for download. This release contains previews of all features that will be available when PostgreSQL 16 is made generally available, though some details of the release can change during the beta period.

You can find information about all of the features and changes found in PostgreSQL 16 in the  release notes:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/16/release-16.html

In the spirit of the open source PostgreSQL community, we strongly encourage you to test the new features of PostgreSQL 16 on your systems to help us eliminate bugs or other issues that may exist. While we do not advise you to run PostgreSQL 16 Beta 2 in production environments, we encourage you to find ways to run your typical application workloads against this beta release.

Your testing and feedback will help the community ensure that the PostgreSQL 16 release upholds our standards of delivering a stable, reliable release of the world's most advanced open source relational database. Please read more about our  beta testing process and how you can contribute:

https://www.postgresql.org/developer/beta/

Upgrading to PostgreSQL 16 Beta 2

To upgrade to PostgreSQL 16 Beta 2 from an earlier version of PostgreSQL, you will need to use a strategy similar to upgrading between major versions of PostgreSQL (e.g. pg_upgrade or pg_dump / pg_restore). For more information, please visit the documentation section on  upgrading.

Changes Since Beta 1

Fixes and changes in PostgreSQL 16 Beta 2 include:

• The default collation provider selected by initdb is changed back to libc.
• The behavior of selecting the C locale with libicu is deferred back to libicu. On ICU 64 and higher, the C locale is obsolete, and ICU provides its own mechanism for selecting a locale or throwing an error.
• Several fixes related to join optimizations.
• Fix for B-tree code related to the changes introduced by logical decoding from standbys.
• Fix cache lookup hazards when looking up MAINTAIN privileges on partition ancestors.

Please see the  release notes for a complete list of new and changed features:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/16/release-16.html

Testing for Bugs & Compatibility

The stability of each PostgreSQL release greatly depends on you, the community, to test the upcoming version with your workloads and testing tools in order to find bugs and regressions before the general availability of PostgreSQL 16. As this is a Beta, minor changes to database behaviors, feature details, and APIs are still possible. Your feedback and testing will help determine the final tweaks on the new features, so please test in the near future. The quality of user testing helps determine when we can make a final release.

A list of  open issues is publicly available in the PostgreSQL wiki. You can  report bugs using this form on the PostgreSQL website:

https://www.postgresql.org/account/submitbug/

Beta Schedule

This is the second beta release of version 16. The PostgreSQL Project will release additional betas as required for testing, followed by one or more release candidates, until the final release in late 2023. For further information please see the  Beta Testing page.

PostgreSQL 16 Beta 2 Released!