For many years, most of the SQL Server installations I managed or deployed to were Standard Edition. Even in large companies that had agreements with Microsoft, since each instance had a cost (even at a discount), we were careful about where we installed Enterprise Edition.

These days with Microsoft wanting to charge everyone for every core, it makes sense to use Standard Edition wherever you can.

One great change for those of us that need to develop for Standard Edition is what Joey calls the most requested feature for SQL Server 2025. We can now install a Standard version of the Developer Edition. This is something many teams have desired since developers tend to use the features available to them, and until now, every Developer Edition has been equivalent to Enterprise Edition (EE). This has resulted in lots of scripts that use EE features, which won't run on production Standard Edition servers.

I'm wondering how many of you out there are running standard edition? Leave a comment and let us know. I suspect there are plenty of organizations who have simple apps and run Standard to save money. I know I've had many employers that wanted to do this, especially for systems that didn't need large numbers of cores.

I wanted to write about a Standard version of Developer edition as an April Fool's joke in 2024 but was told not to do it. I suspected this version was coming, and I'm glad that it's finally announced. As long as we have different features in different editions, we need a developer version of each edition.