Release Date: 21 September 2026

Advanced notice of changes scheduled for after 2026.LTS

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New features and improvements

Server

  • The performance of re-scored binary quantization (AKA High Fidelity Quantized vector search) and scalar quantization is significantly improved. Re-scored binary about a 5X reduction in latency and 5X increase in query throughput. This increased performance holds while conforming to the new updated guidance on memory configuration, see Vector index memory configuration – Operations Manual. Indexes built before v2026.08 that aren’t regularly updated, should be re-created in order to get the full benefit. See Vector indexes – Cypher Manual
  • Procedure plugins can now be reloaded into a running database using the new dbms.reloadProcedures() procedure, so updated user-defined procedures, functions and aggregation functions take effect without restarting the database management system. Reloads can be scoped to a namespace pattern, and a failed reload leaves the previously loaded plugins in service. See Java Reference -> Neo4j customized code.
  • Introduce dbms.bolt.local_connector.object_transport_enabled setting. See Operations Manual -> Configuration settings.
  • Introduce new config setting server.split_archive.part_size to enable splitting backup and dump files generated by neo4j admin commands into multiple parts.

Security

  • Netty-tcnative is now compatible with OpenSSL3 so we no longer need to ship with special rebuilds of these libraries.
  •  The netty-tcnative jars shipped inside ./lib/netty-tcnative are now the same as those from Maven Central. The aarch_64 linux and fedora specific jars are no longer included as they are not available from Maven central.

Admin

Neo4j-admin

Language

Cypher 25

  • Cypher now supports native full-text search through the new SEARCH clause for simple node and relationship patterns. See the Cypher Manual -> Query full-text indexes.
  • The functions toString(), toStringList() and toStringOrNull() have been updated to accept LIST, MAP, NODE, RELATIONSHIP and PATH types. See the Cypher Manual -> String functions.
  • Introduced map comprehension, which allows the creation of a MAP value by iterating over an existing MAP or LIST e.g {k: v IN map | keyExpression: valueExpression}. See the Cypher Manual -> Map comprehension.
  • Add AS COMMANDS for SHOW USERS and SHOW ROLES, to get a create role/user or grant role to user/auth rule command string that can be executed to recreate the current setup of roles, users and their assignments. See Operations Manual -> Manage users and Manage roles.
  • Add new AUTH RULES authRule filter to SHOW PRIVILEGES [AS COMMANDS] to filter on privileges assigned to roles granted to the given auth rules, similar to the existing USERS or ROLES filters. Also add some useful columns to the SHOW PRIVILEGES AS COMMANDS to be able to filter the commands on. See Operations Manual -> Role-based access control.
 

Deprecations

Bug fixes

Server

  • The page cache now reserves its full configured memory at startup and is guaranteed never to exceed server.memory.pagecache.size.

Language

Cypher 25

  • $any dynamic type evaluation on a list containing invalid elements in the list tail will now correctly throw instead of short-circuit accept on the list head, and the error message now no longer erroneously suggests that LIST<LIST<STRING NOT NULL>> is an accepted outer list type. 
  • A division by zero is now raising a clean division-by-zero arithmetic error instead of a previous overflow/out-of-range
  Please refer to the changelog for full details of the changes.

Bundled products

The following products have been included in the distribution – available in /products directory unless stated otherwise – and are fully compatible with this release. 
  • APOC Core 2026.09.0 – The most popular community library developed for the database, is fully supported (included in Labs directory).
  • Bloom 6.x-2.36.0 – A beautiful and expressive data visualization tool to quickly explore and interact with Neo4j’s graph data platform – no coding required. Please refer to the release notes for details.  (Requires a License)
  • Browser 2026.09.18+0  – Neo4j Browser is a tool for developers to interact with the graph. It is the default interface for both Enterprise and Community Editions (included in the /libs directory) of the Neo4j database. 
  • Neo4j GenAI Plugin 2026.09.0 – Neo4j’s GenAI plugin provides functions and procedures to interact with external AI providers through Cypher, such as for creating vector embeddings and generating text.
  • Neo4j Graph Data Science 2026.09.0 is a compatible version of the connected data analytics and machine learning platform that helps you understand the connections in big data to answer critical questions and improve predictions. Please refer to the release notes for further details. (GDS Enterprise requires a License. )
  • Enterprise Fleet Management is no longer bundled with the DBMS package as it is now included in Neo4j.
  • Neo4j Ops Manager 1.15.5 is a UI-based tool that enables Administrators to operate and observe all of their Neo4j Database Management Servers. Now includes support for Neo4j’s any-to-any upgrade. Please refer to the release notes for details. (Included in Enterprise).

Advanced notice of upcoming changes

Query Log Default Format

The default query log format for new installations will change after the next Long Term Support (LTS) release. At the moment, it is set to PLAIN format by default. From the release after the next LTS, the default will be JSON format. If you are upgrading and preserving your current server-logs.xml file, then there will be no change, as support for PLAIN will remain, only the default value for new installations is changing. We recommend moving to JSON for query logging as it contains more information, though the resulting log file size will increase.  

High_limit store format

Heads-up: High_limit store format removal after the next LTS The High_limit store format was deprecated in Neo4j 5.23. The upcoming long-term support (LTS) release will be the final version to support reading, writing, and migrating High_limit databases. Beyond that LTS, Neo4j will not start if it detects a High_limit store. Please take note of the following:
  • The next LTS is the last supported migration window. Reading, writing, and migrating High_limit databases remains supported until the next LTS release only.
  • Databases using the High_limit format will fail to start after the next LTS. No fallback or compatibility layer will be available.
  • Migration to the Block format is required before upgrading beyond the next LTS. We strongly recommend planning and completing your offline migration during or prior to your upgrade to that LTS release.
 

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