PostgreSQL 18 had its first release candidate on September 4, 2025, and went GA three weeks later. As I write this, on September 14, 2026, PostgreSQL 19 has no release candidate date. It has a fourth beta scheduled for September 24, a commit freeze for that beta on September 19, and a stated goal of GA “by the end of October.” In the last three weeks it has lost two of the features that headlined every “what’s new in 19” post written since June, including mine. On August 31, Bruce Momjian wrote on -hackers that “it feels we are in an unprecedented situation here.” A week later, Joshua Drake proposed moving the release to spring 2027. Nobody took him up on it. Nobody laughed, either.

This is not a “PostgreSQL is falling apart” post. The project reverts things late every year; the PostgreSQL 11 cycle had a scariest-patch tournament of its own, and WAIT FOR took a decade and three reverts to land. But 19 is different in degree.