SQL Server Express 2025 (Free version): New Features for Developers

Microsoft SQL Server Express 2025 (v17.x) boosts the free edition with several significant updates. The biggest change is a fivefold increase in database capacity: each database can now grow up to 50 GB (vs. 10 GB in Express 2022). Also, the legacy “Express with Advanced Services” edition has been retired – Express 2025 includes all of those advanced features (full‑text search, basic Reporting Services, machine-learning support, etc.) by default. Other new developer‑oriented features in the 2025 engine – available in Express – include a new VECTOR data type with associated functions and indexes for AI/ML similarity search, built-in regular expression support, native JSON data storage and query enhancements, and a new system procedure (sp_invoke_external_rest_endpoint) for calling external REST/GraphQL APIs directly from SQL. In short, Express 2025 delivers the same core engine innovations as the paid editions, but with the limitations of Express’s hardware and features.

What’s Changed Since 2022

Compared to Express 2022, Express 2025 dramatically increases capacity while keeping the same hardware ceilings. The database size limit jumps from 10 GB to 50 GB per database. In contrast, the compute limits remain unchanged: Express can use only the lesser of 1 socket or 4 CPU cores (no matter how many cores the server has) and about 1.4 GB of buffer pool memory. In fact, a recent Microsoft community post confirms these constraints: Express is still capped at 1 socket/4 cores and ≈1.4 GB RAM. On the upside, since Advanced Services was merged, you now get built‑in full-text search, basic reporting, machine learning, and other features that previously required the SQLEXPRADV installer. In practice, Express 2025 is a far more capable free edition (bigger databases and richer functionality) while remaining focused on small-scale and developer workloads.

Express Edition Limitations

Despite these enhancements, SQL Server Express 2025 retains key restrictions. Its engine is still limited to one socket/4 cores and about 1.4 GB of buffer pool. Any extra memory used by the OS or other processes can push total usage above 1.4 GB, but only ~1.4 GB is available for buffering data. Express cannot be used in high-availability clusters or Availability Groups; it supports neither failover clustering nor Always On AGs. It also lacks SQL Server Agent, so you must use Windows Task Scheduler or other means for batch jobs. In short, Express 2025 is fully functional, but it remains geared toward single‑instance, lightweight scenarios.

• Max database size: 50 GB per database (up from 10 GB in Express 2022). Databases above this limit go read-only.

• CPU/memory: 1 socket (up to 4 cores) and ~1.4 GB buffer pool. (Full OS RAM may be higher, but only ≈1.4 GB is used for data caches.)

• Features: Includes Full‑Text Search and other advanced services (no separate ADV installer). Does not include SQL Server Agent jobs or distributed features like cross‑database queries in an AG.

• High availability: No failover clustering, no Always On secondary replicas.

• Other: LocalDB (an embedded SQL engine) is supported for development, but, like Express, it inherits the same limits.

Express 2025 vs. 2022: Feature Comparison

Microsoft documents each entry above. In summary, Express 2025 unlocks the larger database cap and bundles additional features, but still carries over the core Express limits on CPU, memory, and high availability.