--- title: "Four features you'll actually feel in Postgres 19" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 649 published_at: "2026-05-20" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/649" --- Plus critical Postgres releases, a way to encrypt PL/pgSQL code, and SQLite with a Postgres interface. #โ€‹649 โ€” May 20, 2026 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/649) Together with [![Greptile\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_1280,h_308/co_white,e_outline:25/mvysygc5u6xqa3gvmetk.png)](https://www.greptile.com/review?utm_source=postgresweekly&utm_medium=paid-community&utm_campaign=postgresweekly_primary_no_signup) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/gwgjpo4wrgclv830r3c1.jpg)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-184-1710-1614-1518-and-1423-released-3297/) [Postgres 18.4, 17.10, 16.14, 15.18, and 14.23 Released](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-184-1710-1614-1518-and-1423-released-3297/) โ€” All supported versions get an update to fix 11 security vulnerabilities and over 60 bugs. The vulnerabilities include serious memory corruption and trust-boundary bugs, not just in the server but also in clients that connect to malicious servers. PostgreSQL Global Development Group ๐Ÿ’ก Christophe Pettus digs deeper in [Eleven CVEs Walk Into a Release](https://thebuild.com/blog/2026/05/14/eleven-cves-walk-into-a-release/). [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/70a2ac35.png)](https://www.greptile.com/review?utm_source=postgresweekly&utm_medium=paid-community&utm_campaign=postgresweekly_primary_no_signup) [Would Greptile Have Caught That Postgres Bug?](https://www.greptile.com/review?utm_source=postgresweekly&utm_medium=paid-community&utm_campaign=postgresweekly_primary_no_signup) โ€” Paste the GitHub PR that introduced it without signing up. Greptile reviews the old PR like a new one and shows the comments it would have left. Greptile sponsor **IN BRIEF:** - ๐ŸŽ‰ David Steele shares [an official update on the pgBackRest project](https://pgbackrest.org/news.html) after its [recent funding woes](https://mydbanotebook.org/posts/pgbackrest-is-dead.-now-what/): _pgBackRest will continue_, thanks to the support of several prominent new sponsors. - ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Early bird tickets for [Postgres Summit US](https://2026.postgressummit.us/registration/) โ€“ taking place in NYC this September 30-October 2 โ€“ are now available. - [Heroku Postgres Advanced](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-postgres-advanced), the next generation of Heroku's Postgres platform, is now in 'limited GA' for users who request access. [Four Features You'll Actually _Feel_ in Postgres 19 Beta](https://thebuild.com/blog/2026/05/18/postgresql-19-beta-the-four-features-youll-actually-feel/) โ€” The final release isnโ€™t till September, but the beta is due soon. Rather than look at headline features, Christophe focuses on things that change _โ€œhow the database feels in productionโ€_, like JIT being turned off by default and parallel autovacuum index workers. Christophe Pettus [The `ORDER BY` Jungle: Why `ORDER BY` Aliases Behave Strangely](https://boringsql.com/posts/order-by-jungle/) โ€” `ORDER BY a` and `ORDER BY -a` look almost identical but hit two different parsers: the SQL-92 name path and the SQL-99 expression path. Radim traces the seam through aliases, `GROUP BY`, window functions, quoted identifiers, `COLLATE`, and `UNION`, down to the responsible function. Radim Marek ๐Ÿ“„ [Building Automatic, Contextual Clinical Trial Audit Logging in Postgres Without Triggers](https://runharbor.com/blog/2026-05-18-building-automatic-contextual-clinical-trial-audit-logging-in-postgres-without-triggers) โ€“ Using TypeScript and Drizzle, specifically. Nathan Leung (Harbor) ๐Ÿ“„ [How We Saved 40GB of Space Wasted on Indexes](https://peerlist.io/raviojhax/articles/how-unused-indexes-ate-41gb-postgres) โ€“ _โ€œTLDR: Donโ€™t randomly add indexes to your db tables.โ€_ Ravi Ojha **RELEASES AND CODE:** [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/eorbfdjkzu8ed0ytslyu.jpg)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/plpgsql_wrap-v10-released-3299/) [plpgsql_wrap 1.0: A Way to Obfuscate PL/pgSQL Code](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/plpgsql_wrap-v10-released-3299/) โ€” HexaCluster has open sourced its extension for distributing and running encrypted PL/pgSQL procedures that can be dumped and reloaded without end users being able to read them. Inspired by [Oracleโ€™s โ€˜wrapโ€™ approach.](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B10500_01/appdev.920/a96624/c_wrap.htm) Gilles Darold (HexaCluster) ๐Ÿค– [Supabase is Now an Official ChatGPT App](https://supabase.com/blog/supabase-is-now-an-official-chatgpt-app) โ€” Supabase can now integrate with the ChatGPT app so you can manage your database, projects, and branches directly from it. Greg Richardson (Supabase) [pgsqlite: A Postgres Protocol Adapter for SQLite Databases](https://github.com/erans/pgsqlite) โ€” A wire-protocol adapter that makes an SQLite database pretend to be Postgres, so the usual psql/pgAdmin/driver stack just works against it. Eran Sandler ๐Ÿ“ฐ Classifieds ๐Ÿง  Postgres alerts that come with diagnoses and proposed SQL fixes, not just thresholds. [Open source](https://github.com/pgEdge/ai-dba-workbench). --- ๐Ÿ˜ Self-hosting Postgres? [Try out ParadeDB](https://paradedb.com), a Postgres extension that enables Elasticsearch-quality full-text, vector and hybrid search. No ETL pipeline, no Elastic cluster. --- [Start building with Aivenโ€™s dev tier for Apache Kafka](https://fandf.co/4uT91wS). Build on an enterprise stack for $35/mo. Provision managed Kafka with 100 partitions, Schema Registry & REST Proxy in under 2 mins. [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/xdmua8qlejdtwmbie5lu.jpg)](https://vyruss.org/blog/pg_statviz-1-0-released-ai-analysis.html) - ๐Ÿ“ˆ [pg_statviz 1.0](https://vyruss.org/blog/pg_statviz-1-0-released-ai-analysis.html) โ€“ Extension and utility for analysis and visualization of Postgres internal statistics. Now with a new AI-powered analysis option. - [Postgres Language Server 0.25](https://github.com/supabase-community/postgres-language-server) โ€“ Supabase's Language Server Protocol (LSP) implementation for Postgres. - [SQLsmith 1.5](https://github.com/anse1/sqlsmith) โ€“ Random SQL query generator to produce and execute diverse statements for testing. **Got a new email?** You can [change your address here](https://postgresweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*). --- **Bored of us?** [Click here to stop getting Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). --- **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. We can't include everything but we'll look at anything you send. _Thanks!_ --- Published by Cooper Press Ltd. Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom Postgres, PostgreSQL and the Slonik Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada. [Stop getting this newsletter](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*).