The short story for this quarter: SQL Server 2022 adoption rates have stalled, even backtracked, and it doesn’t appear to be due to the cloud, either.
For the long story: ever wonder how fast people are adopting new versions of SQL Server, or what’s “normal” out there for SQL Server adoption rates? Let’s find out in the summer 2023 version of our SQL ConstantCare® population report.
Out of 3,124 monitored servers (up from 3,002), here’s the version adoption rate:
The big 3 versions are all within 1% of the last quarter’s numbers:
- SQL Server 2019: 38% (up 5% since last quarter)
- SQL Server 2017: 19% (steady)
- SQL Server 2016: 27% (down 1%)
On the other extreme:
- SQL Server 2022: 1% – actually down, from 52 servers last time to 46 this time
- Azure SQL DB: 2%
- Azure SQL DB Managed Instances: <1%
Just 13% of the population are running unsupported major versions (2014 & prior), and that’s steady from the last report.
Here’s how adoption is trending over time, with most recent data at the right:
It looks like companies are standardizing on SQL Server 2019 for new installs rather than SQL Server 2022. In the past, we’ve seen development environments going live on new versions first, ahead of production pushes, but we’re not even seeing that anymore.
I’ve written about how SQL Server 2022 still isn’t ready yet, and how even the updates are breaking. This feels like the moment where we call it: companies are skipping SQL Server 2022. It’s a shame, and I know Microsoft employees have to be frustrated about this, and I know I’m not going to make any friends at Microsoft by saying the quiet part out loud, but here we are.