Chris Sinjakli | December 17, 2025Postgres 18 is now available on PlanetScale. Starting today, when you create a new database, the default version will be 18.1. You can select a prior version using the dropdown on the database creation page.This combined with our recent launches of $5 single-node databases and $50 Metal databases makes it the perfect platform to power your Postgres-backed applications.What's new in 18?The Postgres 18 release notes have all the details on what's changed since version 17. The highlights include:A new asynchronous I/O system that can improve query performanceBuilt-in support for UUIDv7 with the uuidv7() functionMore queries can make use of multi-column indexes thanks to the new Skip Scan optimizationRead our benchmarks comparing Postgres 17 vs 18 to learn more about performance improvements and what to expect.Upgrading from Postgres 17 to 18We don't currently offer an automated, in-place upgrade from Postgres 17 to 18. To upgrade, create a new Postgres 18 database and perform an online migration from your existing PlanetScale Postgres 17 database using our import guides.