PostgreSQL 15 - What's new?

PostgreSQL 15 introduces a range of new features and improvements aimed at enhancing the developer experience, performance, security, and tooling. Key updates include improved functionality for the bundled performance testing tool pgbench and the command-line tool psql, alongside the introduction of the SQL standard MERGE command, which offers more flexibility than previous methods. The CREATE DATABASE command has been revamped to improve speed and efficiency by using write-ahead logging (WAL) instead of checkpoints, and support for ICU collations has been expanded to cluster and database levels. Performance enhancements include faster sorting and improved capabilities for postgres_fdw, a foreign data wrapper, which now allows for parallel commits across foreign servers. Logical replication sees advancements in row filtering and column lists, while security updates make the default public schema access more restrictive and introduce new roles for specific administrative tasks. Additionally, PostgreSQL 15 enhances observability with new statistics views and monitoring roles, and the ability to handle larger data units such as petabytes. These updates reflect PostgreSQL's ongoing commitment to innovation and meeting the needs of complex, demanding applications.