Oracle 23ai (23c) Database Free – Developer Release

In early May 2024, Oracle renamed Oracle 23c to Oracle 23ai. I’ll try to update all references to 23ai, but I might have missed some. Just assume whenever you see Oracle 23c, I meant to say 23ai.

Oracle 23ai is finally available, in the form of Oracle 23ai FREE – Developer Release for download and is also available on Oracle Cloud. The on-premises full bells and whistles version will also be available.

Why? This release isn’t the full bells and whistles full release of 23ai Database. There have been several people from Oracle emphasizing the name of this release is Oracle 23ai Free – Developer Release. There are a few things to consider with this release. It isn’t a GA (General Available) Release which is due later this year (maybe). Oracle 23ai Free – Developer Release is an early release to allow developers to start playing with various developer-focused new features. Some people have referred to this as the 23ai Beta version 2 release, and this can be seen in the DB header information. It could be viewed similarly to the XE releases we had previously. XE was always Free, so we now have a rename and emphasis on this. There have been many, many organizations using the XE release to build applications. Also, the XE releases were a no-cost option, or what most people would like to say, the FREE version.

For the full 23ai Database release we will get even more features, but most of these will probably be larger enterprise scale scenarios.

Now it’s time for you to go play with 23ai Free – Developer Release. Here are some useful link

I’ll be writing posts on some of the more interesting new features and I’ll add the links to those below. I’ll also add some links to posts by other people:

Just remember, 23c = 23ai.