Contest: Guess the SQL Server 2025 Release Date

By Brent Ozar · November 23, 2022 · 316 comments

When will Microsoft officially release SQL Server 2024 (or 2025, or whatever it’ll be) for download? The dust is just barely starting to settle on the 2022 box, so it’s time to guess the next one.

  • Leave one – and only one – comment here in YYYY/MM/DD format with your release date guess. If you leave multiple comments, only the first/earliest one is going to count.
  • “The release date” is the date that Microsoft announces that the final RTM bits will be downloadable to the public from www.Microsoft.com. (Not the date they make the announcement, and we’re only talking the release-to-manufacturing public version, not a preview, CTP, RC, CU, or SP.)
  • Closest to win, without going over, wins lifetime access to my Fundamentals & Mastering recorded classes.
  • In the event of a tie (multiple people guessing the same date), the earlier comment wins.
  • Only comments more than 48 hours before than Microsoft’s public release announcement will count. If Microsoft makes their announcement, and you run over here trying to leave a fast comment with the release date, not gonna take it.
  • If Microsoft announces two release dates – like one for Windows, and one for Linux – then we’ll pick a separate winner for each. (But you only get to leave one date in the comments.)

Place your bets!

Tim Elley wins!Update 2025/11/18: SQL Server 2025 came out today, and Tim Elley nailed it! He correctly guessed 2025/11/18 way back on November 23, 2022.

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316 comments

    1. Oops, “wrong” format. It should be 2024/06/03 (same guess tho, right?) D’oh!

  70. SQL 2022 will be the final boxed product MS will ship. If you want new features you can get them in Azure SQL and Managed Instance.

  121. Off topic – but does Richie scrape the dates off the page when it’s time to choose the winner or do you manually find the winner?

    1. I manually find ’em. I just search using the date format that’s specified in the blog post. It’s always so amazing to me that people can’t follow simple, short instructions!

      1. You should use the preferred SQL Server date literal format next time (yyyyMMdd, no separators) 😉
        The more we get developers used to typing dates that way, the better.

  206. 2026/07/28
    …if they do ever release “SQL Server 20xx” again. Personally I think they’ll go to “Azure DB” or something silly like that…

      1. MicroSoft, AWS, ORACLE, Rackspace would all love that John, but not the customer.
        There are critical systems “Backhoe Bob” should not cut. Try telling Public Safety “The 9-1-1 system will be in the cloud” or “The link to 9-1-1 will be managed by another team” Note, apologies to people named Bob.
        That said – WebEOC which manages disaster response is in the cloud.
        Also research FEMA after action reports. They often start out as “If not for HAM operators and local IT and servers we would have been worse off”
        As a DBA should the system be in the cloud ?
        As a citizen or person dependent on that database – do you want the system local and direct access or remote with multiple links ? ” Asking for a friend”

    1. Clarification: When will the next Version of SQL be READY to be installed in Production? I’ll guess sometime late 2026.

  242. Feb 24th 2026, It may release next faster secured cloud era of SQL Server version which may use UWP/DCH version of its Management Studio and other tools in its builtin, which maybe will have even number. It will be called SQL Server 2024 or 2026

  252. Never. The a pushing hard to move to the cloud. They will let on-prem hit end of life to force the move