SQL Server 2025 Is Out, and Standard Goes Up to 256GB RAM, 32 Cores!
Today marks the official birthday of Microsoft SQL Server 2025. Here’s where to download the evaluation version. Here are the top things you wanna consider as you talk to your managers, developers, and end users.
The feature differences between 2025 Enterprise and Standard have been revealed, and the news for Standard Edition folks is spectacular: it now supports up to 32 CPU cores and 256GB RAM! Other editions get a couple of tweaks: Express Edition now supports up to 50GB per database (although it’s still capped at a single CPU core), and Web Edition is no more.
If you build your own apps and you use Standard Edition in production, there’s a new Standard Developer edition that mimics the behavior and limitations of Standard Edition. During installation, when you hit the edition dropdown, choose Standard Developer. You can read about 2025 Standard’s limitations here. The big one people usually think about is the RAM cap, but there are also subtle performance differences, like Enterprise Edition’s advanced scanning, aka merry-go-round reads.
If your TempDB runs out of space, I love Resource Governor’s new ability to cap space usage for workload groups (or everybody altogether.) This should be a part of everybody’s standard builds for 2025 servers – especially because of a fun new bonus: Resource Governor is now available in Standard Edition too.
If you use columnstore indexes, 2025 continues upon every release’s investments, with a bunch of improvements to make management easier on ordered indexes. In my early tests with clients, we’ve seen massive improvements in easier, faster, more online maintenance that we simply couldn’t do before.
If you’re storing and querying JSON, either in NVARCHAR(MAX) columns or 2025’s new JSON data type, there’s a new JSON_CONTAINS search function, which in many cases is quite sargable with the new JSON indexes. This should only be used when you can’t predict which columns you need to index, and index them with computed columns instead though, as I explain in this new Indexing JSON module in my Mastering Index Tuning class.
If you’re doing AI projects, the most interesting piece is the ability to call things like ChatGPT using the new sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint. I’m genuinely excited for that and I’ve talked to a bunch of clients who are ready to start putting it through its paces for a lot of different use cases. For AI, 2025 also brings a new vector data type, vector functions, and vector search, but I’m much less enthusiastic about those. I imagine those features will see adoption rates similar to spatial data and graph data – just not that high in SQL Server.
If you’re into regular expressions, they’re now built in, so you don’t have to install third party tools for it anymore. However, I’d caution you to test your queries first: I’ve seen horrific performance. SQL Server doesn’t have any magic secret sauce to make your convoluted search conditions sargable, and string processing has never been SQL Server’s strong point. This feature is kinda like cursors, in that there will be very specific places where it makes sense, usually in one-off utility queries, not the kind of thing you wanna put in front of end users.
If you struggle with lock escalations and multiple writers, enable the new Optimized Locking feature in conjunction with Accelerated Database Recovery, and you can have millions of rows involved in write locks, and you still won’t see lock escalation. I demo it in this module of my Mastering Index Tuning class.
There are other improvements, like a few Intelligent Query Processing improvements, lots of Availability Group improvements, and a new faster (but not necessarily smaller) backup compression algorithm to test.
SQL Server versions rarely get big breaking changes, and this release is no exception. There’s a small list of removed and deprecated features, but nobody’s gonna miss that stuff. Data Quality Services? Master Data Services? Synapse Link? C’mon, who would be naive enough to use that stuff? None of my readers, just like they wouldn’t even dream of considering Big Data Clusters or ledger tables. We know better. Databases are persistence layers, not app servers or blockchain spam.
However, 2025 does have several breaking changes focused around secure connectivity between services and servers. 2025 adopts TDS 8.0 support with TLS 1.3, which breaks some linked servers and replication setups. The fixes in that link sound pretty easy, but I’m not the kind of guy who uses linked servers or replication, so that’s left up to you. I just feel like I gotta mention it first in the headlines because it’s so rare that we get known breaking changes, and you wanna head these off before you get surprised by ’em.
But best of all, SQL Server 2025 sees been massive price cuts to respond to market pressure from other databases, and to correlate with the fact that a lot of the new features drive up cloud revenue, like syncing your data up to your pricey new Fabric reporting system and calling Azure OpenAI via stored procedures. Microsoft clearly recognized that the more SQL Server 2025 is adopted, the more you’ll spend on cloud services, and the less likely you’ll be to switch to open source databases, so they… almost had you fooled, didn’t I? Sorry, bud. The price list PDF is out, and prices look the same:
- SQL Server 2025 Enterprise Edition: $7,562 per core
- SQL Server 2025 Standard Edition: $1,973 per core
When should you upgrade to SQL Server 2025?
If you’re a regular reader around here, you’ll know that I tend to be a pessimist. I tend to recommend that folks only upgrade to a new version when there’s a specific feature in the new version that they absolutely require for their applications. Even then, I recommend that they test that specific feature first, make sure it actually relieves the pain you’re having in production, and make sure it behaves the way you want.
I think SQL Server 2025 is different. I think you should adopt it sooner rather than later.
If you build your own apps, in the old days, we’d say things like “wait until Service Pack 1 before you put it into production.” These days, Microsoft has done a pretty good job with compatibility levels: in a development environment, you can run SQL Server 2025, but put the databases in the compatibility level that you’re using in production, and be fairly confident that the majority of your query plans will look/feel the same.
I’d recommend putting 2025 into your development environments sooner rather than later.
Initially, keep the databases in the older compatibility level, and warn the developers not to use any new data types, functions, or T-SQL capabilities from 2025 until you’ve got the confidence that you can run 2025 in production. Use the development servers as testbeds for things like your management & monitoring apps, linked servers, replication, etc, and gain the confidence you need to gradually put 2025 into production. You can start gaining that confidence in low-load development environments now, without being worried about the inevitable bugs that’ll get fixed in the first few Cumulative Updates.
If you only host 3rd party apps, hold back until your vendors agree that SQL Server 2025 is one of their supported platforms. Yes, in terms of what the apps feel, 2025 will probably behave identically to prior versions as long as the compatibility level is set to a level the vendor supports. However, you don’t wanna be the one who gets blamed when the vendor says, “Sorry, you’re running a version of SQL Server that we don’t support.” The vendor might blame you for issues that are completely unrelated to 2025, and I can’t have that happening to you. You need this job.
But as soon as they say 2025 is one of their supported platforms, I think you should go for it. These days, SQL Server has more tools than ever to help you manage query performance when you can’t touch the queries. Turn on Query Store, put the database into 2025 compatibility level, turn on automatic tuning (aka automatic plan regression), and use the tips I describe in How to Go Live on a New Version of SQL Server.
To learn more about SQL Server 2025, check out the posts I’ve written on its new features.
35 Comments. Leave new
Unless I’m wrong here but the JSON data type is new in 2025 not 2022 right?
Yes, but I blogged about why it’s not all that useful here: https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2025/11/how-to-query-json-data-quickly-in-sql-server-part-2-sql-server-2025/
If you’re using JSON today, you can already use NVARCHAR(MAX) columns for that, and there’s no need to hold off or change your deployments for 2025 yet. (Although I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll fix the egregious indexing problems in a CU.)
Gotcha so it is a typo in this article indicating its a 2022 feature I right?
Ah, sorry, I didn’t understand what you were referring to – yep! Will fix when I get home, thanks!
So the difference I’m noticing is real: US list prices dropped, while AU retail bundles look higher. But the expanded Standard edition limits mean both regions can potentially save if workloads fit within Standard.
[redacted by moderator]
Dawesi – that isn’t the case for Microsoft’s official pricing as far as I can tell, but your reseller may have their own pricing structure.
I edited your comment to remove the inflammatory language – let’s avoid those kinds of insults here, okay? Thanks for understanding.
Oh, wow, having Standard Developer edition is awesome!
Brent! You had me excited for 5 seconds when you said price cuts. How dare you.
Hee hee!
Thank you for the great information on 2025. Sounds like an awesome new version. One more reason to not upgrade, no SSRS in 2025, right? If you’re like us, no moving to 2025 until upgraded to PBIRS.
In many cases, SSRS and the database engine are run separately, so there’s not really a concern about that – you could continue to run SSRS 2022 separately if that’s important to you.
IMHO the upgrade path to PBIRS is trivial. It’s SSRS with a couple of extra bells on.
I’m ready for the AI enabled DB.
Only kidding, I’m only salty because I couldn’t find anyone to join me in an Ignite Keynote AI drinking game.
Seriously though, “the business” wants us to move the Fabric because it will “allow them to do their own ETL and [sic] sematic datas”, so I’m interested in the mirroring to Fabric capabilities. Oh, yes, and “the business” thinks “Fabric has powerful AI in it”. And I’m back to the AI themed drinking game
I’m gonna be honest: I gave up on the keynote about 20 minutes into the AI scenarios.
I had to laugh when it started, and the guy said, “I start my morning by asking Copilot what’s on my agenda today.” He unlocks his phone, goes into Copilot, waits for it to wake up, slowly says ‘What’s on my agenda today?’, and waits like 5 seconds before it even starts talking. The whole thing took like 15-20 seconds.
CMON, real people just have their calendar app on their home screen. Just touch it, bam, see your agenda.
Having Teddy Ruxpin slowly read you a dumbed-down version of your agenda is NOT a value add.
What we need is a carbon measurement for each query we make to AI.
When you learn it took 3 trees and a baby panda to have your calendar read to you, and for the AI to hallucinate a digital transformation meeting that actually happened last week, you might take the more eco-friendly (and quicker) approach, and as you say, just read thing ourselves.
And the Developer downloader installs 2022 and the checksum fails, nice!
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downloads
Using Express Edition for small projects as a way to attract people to MS SQL Server is not possible with 1.5 GB of RAM these days. It removes any point for this edition to exist, unless sqlite is the competitor (which is obviously not).
I see you mention a 1 core limit, it is 1 socket or 4 cores, which is quite decent.
Is it too late to guess 18Nov2025 for the MSSQL2025 release date? LOL I can’t wait…
A guy guessed it all the way back in 2022!
This AI feature in DB world is garbage, accidental dba here. The only times I use any AI solution if I see some errors I don’t have in my OneNote, regardless still 0 trust… I prefer good ol’ StackOverflow discussions, logical thinking etc.. AI is brainrot, (don’t) change my mind.
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AI in db is garbage? so data with AI is garbage… that makes zero sense.
I do like the ML features, and the ability to talk to locally hosted AI through endpoints.
But it does allow for data breaches to continue to increase. Imagine how much private ip and personal data these AI engines have now. What a win for them! (and billions in fines ready to be handed to companies who breach)
Thanks Brent, for your time putting this very useful information together.
My pleasure!
[…] Brent Ozar lays out a bunch of features as well: […]
Thanks Brent As always for nice info.
I can still see only the Preview. The link won’t let me download SQL Server 2025, unless i fill in required fields (Greece).
Been using SQL Server for two decades… and the announcement that Web Edition is no more means that my company won’t be using SQL Server within the next two.
Seriously, that’s a massive hammer blow. Ten times the price to licence Standard edition? No thanks. It’s a big job for us to move to PostgreSQL but it will now be cost-effective to undertake that job.
so the investment in time (hours paid) to migrate is cheaper than standard edition licencing? You need a new MSP to buy from.
Must be not using most sql features either, and you’ll lose auto-tuning features… and have to invest in a new dev tool ide setup? Unless you’re using basic database CRUD, the investment to migrate is large.
I’ve no idea how you’ve jumped to those assumptions.
I run a team of eight senior devs (albeit not all back-end database). We’ve been doing this for years and know SQL Server inside out. We’re in charge of a large multi-national application, very large database on multiple live servers (several hundred Gb on each). Queries are large and complex and we hammer them to death to tune and optimise them.
Current SQL Server licencing costs for web edition costs us approximate $1000 per month (multiple live, backup and test servers). We’re looking at ten times the cost for Standard edition; we’ve done the math.
We had previously conducted a brief look at the migration to Postgres – mainly because we’re getting hampered by the core restriction on Web edition and the attraction of running on 32+ core boxes for no additional database licencing cost with a move to “something else” was hard to ignore.
Yes it’s a lot of work. We’re about as far from “using basic database CRUD” as you can imagine. But we’ve got well written code, centralised factories and shared logic, so migrating is completely doable. As to “invest in a new dev tool ide setup”? Seriously?
And $10K/month is a lot of money even before you factor in the performance gains we can realise by running on bigger boxes. And there are tools which will do some of the migration for us and yes, AI will also help.
We’ll start looking more in-depth into this early next year. I think in terms of investment, we’ll break even possibly within a year but maybe more realistically 18 months. But we’ve been in business for a couple of decades and plan to be here in another couple, so the payback is definitely worth that investment.
Hawkeye – just chiming in because I read your well-thought-out comment.
I’ve had a few clients who faced a similar decision, except the numbers (teams/costs/etc) involved were a couple of orders of magnitude larger. However, I think the bigger the numbers are, the HARDER it is to make the transition, because you end up hitting more edge cases in the features you’ve used over the years, the third party utilities you’ve integrated, the ETL processes to other databases in the company, etc.
I actually think you’re in the sweet spot there. At 8 senior devs, and a relatively limited number of servers (as opposed to dozens or hundreds), I think your chances of success are probably better than most.
Oh also I forgot to mention a couple of other things.
You’re also in the sweet spot because if you’ve been doing it for years, you’re probably comfortable managing the SQL Servers yourself today, because you probably got started before Azure SQL DB made sense. I’d consider just looking briefly at Azure SQL DB to see if the numbers make sense today – while the numbers haven’t really changed, the equations for teams have, as in sometimes it’s more attractive for companies to hand the keys over to Microsoft (or AWS RDS) and let them do the management, like if a senior sysadmin recently left and you don’t wanna backfill that position.
Because if you’re considering jumping database platforms, you probably aren’t (or shouldn’t) consider managing a new database platform with your existing teams. There’s not really an ROI in managing your own installs, backups, high availability, etc – that’s commodity plumbing today, especially if you’re dealing with the kinds of sizes that are only around $1k/month.
That means if you’re considering jumping platforms to, say, Postgres, then you’re probably also considering hosting that on something like AWS Aurora or Microsoft Azure Database for Postgres (or HorizonDB, or whatever new product they bring out next week). As long as you’re running numbers, I would throw a comparison in there to Azure SQL DB. I’m not saying it’s gonna win, but I’m just saying you should consider it as a comparison to hosted/managed Postgres.
The new memory cap for Standard edition is great news. We’re on SQL Server 2016 Standard and were looking to rebuild our servers using 2022 but we’re getting to a position where the memory cap could become an issue in the next 12 months. This left us with the difficult choice of paying extra for Enterprise when we weren’t ready or committing to another rebuild in a year or so.
It’s fantastic that we can go to 2025 and not worry about the cost of Enterprise for another few years.
Microsoft SQL Server 2025’s release brings major upgrades, especially for Standard Edition users, with expanded CPU and RAM support and a new Standard Developer option for testing. These improvements help teams, including game app developers, build faster, more scalable applications while better aligning development environments with real-world production limits today.
[…] was announced last week at Microsoft Ignite and it’s been covered by others such as Brent Ozar, but if you haven’t heard, SQL Server 2025 is now generally available. Here is the Microsoft […]