MySQL 9.7.0 releases as New LTS; Several Enterprise Features Shift to Community Edition

Oracle released MySQL 9.7.0 on May 10, 2026, inaugurating the first major long‑term support (LTS) series since 8.4. The release consolidates recent development work and moves several formerly Enterprise‑only capabilities into the Community Edition.

Oracle released MySQL 9.7.0 to general availability on May 10, 2026, inaugurating the 9.7 LTS series — the first major long‑term support baseline since MySQL 8.4. The timing is notable because the release arrives amid community concern over a shrinking contributor base and recent Oracle layoffs that have prompted questions about the project's long‑term stewardship. DBAs and developers should expect to validate workload behavior before adopting 9.7 in production, given the scale of internal changes.

The 9.7.0 update consolidates improvements from the latest development cycle and explicitly migrates a number of features from the Enterprise tier into the Community Edition. At a platform level, the release includes enhancements to the MySQL REST Service, expanded telemetry and query‑optimizer work, and new security features such as dynamic data masking and OpenID authentication. Oracle also bundles this release with numerous bug fixes and security patches. Developer‑facing additions include in‑database JavaScript and expanded JSON Duality capabilities. JSON Duality in 9.7.0 gains DML support for JSON Duality Views and introduces auto‑increment support for those operations, broadening how applications can manipulate JSON data inside the server.

Query optimization receives a major change with the introduction of the Hypergraph optimizer. The new optimizer is designed to enable exploration of interesting orders, make the choice between nested‑loop and hash‑join a true cost‑based decision, and support bushy join plans. Øystein Grøvlen of Oracle described the hypergraph approach as promoting important optimizer choices earlier in the planning process.

Operationally, 9.7.0 adds visibility and resilience features intended to reduce manual intervention during cluster events. New flow‑control monitoring surfaces cluster throttling; extended replication applier statistics provide observability into lag and throughput for multi‑threaded replication; unhealthy cluster members can be automatically evicted and rejoined; and a new primary election policy favors the most up‑to‑date eligible node during failover.

The release lands against strained community and competitive dynamics: a repository analysis cited in coverage shows declining development activity and fewer contributors, and some community members have launched tracking forks to pursue independent extensions. Oracle has conducted meetings to reassure users and says its long‑term goal is a tighter feedback loop with the community. Percona founder Peter Zaitsev cautioned that while the Hypergraph optimizer speeds many queries, it can degrade others, so thorough testing is recommended before switching optimizers or rolling 9.7 into production.