Good news for those using SQL Server Standard!

Microsoft announced yesterday (11/18/2025) the official release of SQL Server 2025, a new version of its database engine.

As with every version, we all expect new features — and this version is not far behind — but a key question also arises:

What’s new in the STANDARD edition? Because we know that Enterprise is not always accessible to all companies.

SQL Server 2025 – VERY GOOD NEWS for those who use STANDARD

The Standard Edition received improvements that many of us had been waiting for for years. Here I share the most important thing:

Support for up to 256 GB of RAM → versus the classic 128 GB. (For me, the best change of all)

Up to 32 cores available → more power without needing to upgrade to Enterprise.

Resource Governor now available in Standard → a bomb. It was exclusive to Enterprise since SQL Server 2008. It allows you to control CPU / memory / I/O, Tempdb (in 2025) and prevent a query from affecting the entire server.

Developer Edition Standard → now you can test with the same capabilities as production. Before: Developer = Enterprise. Now: Developer = Standard or Enterprise

Why does this matter?

I think Microsoft is making a great play with the Standard edition.

Many of my clients work with Enterprise, but many others do not… and with SQL Server 2025 we are already evaluating migrations —because only with Resource Governor + available memory is it justified (and a lot)

Source: es.linkedin.com