sqlfingers.com: SQL Server Web Edition Is Dead. Now What?

Monday, February 16, 2026

SQL Server Web Edition Is Dead. Now What?

SQL Server 2025 dropped Web Edition. No deprecation or transition period. It's just gone. SQL Server 2022 was the last version to include it. If you're a hosting provider, an ISV, or anyone who built on Web Edition's lower price point through SPLA — you need a plan.

What Happened

SQL Server 2025 ships with four editions: Enterprise, Standard, Express, and Developer. Web Edition is not on the list. Microsoft didn't deprecate it with a vague 'future release' warning. They just dropped it.

The Web Edition existed since 2008, specifically to serve internet-facing workloads at a fraction of Standard Edition pricing. Hosting providers and SPLA partners built entire service tiers around it — and that licensing tier is now gone.

What You're Left With

Option	What You Get	The Catch
Stay on SQL Server 2022 Web	Supported until January 2033	No 2025 new features. SPLA availability beyond 2033 is unspecified.
Move to Standard Edition	Full 2025 feature set, up to 32 cores, 256 GB memory	Significant cost increase. Per-core licensing adds up fast.
Move to Express Edition	Free. Now supports 50 GB databases (up from 10 GB)	Single CPU. 1 GB memory for the buffer pool. No SQL Agent.
Move to Azure SQL Database	Fully managed, elastic scaling	Requires architecture changes. Ongoing consumption cost.

Who This Hurts

SPLA partners and hosting providers — this is the big one. If you license SQL Server through SPLA to offer shared or dedicated hosting, Web Edition was your bread and butter. Standard Edition pricing changes the math on every hosting plan you sell. You can keep offering 2022 Web for now, but you're selling a product with a hard expiration date.

Small SaaS shops — if your product runs on Web Edition because Standard was overkill and Express was too small, you're in the gap. The good news is Express jumped from 10 GB to 50 GB in 2025. The bad news is the single CPU and 1 GB buffer pool limits haven't changed. If your workload fits in that box, great. If not, you need to consider paying for Standard Edition.

Anyone planning a 2025 upgrade — if your upgrade path assumed Web Edition would carry forward, stop and re-evaluate now. That edition doesn't exist anymore.

The Real Question

2033 sounds like a long time, but it's not. That's one hardware refresh cycle and maybe two budget cycles before 'we'll deal with it later' turns into now. If you're running Web Edition today, the decision isn't whether to move — it's when, and to what.

The 50 GB Express limit is genuinely useful for small databases. Standard Edition's expanded limits (32 cores, 256 GB memory) make it more palatable than it used to be, and Azure SQL is the obvious play if you're already cloud-adjacent — but each of these paths have licensing, architecture, and costs that need to be ironed out before you can make this decision.

Quick Check: Know What You're Running

SELECT
    SERVERPROPERTY('Edition')          AS CurrentEdition,
    SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion')   AS SQLVersion,
    SERVERPROPERTY('ProductLevel')     AS PatchLevel;

If that comes back with 'Web Edition' — it's time to start the conversation.

Need Help Figuring This Out?

This is what I do. Whether you need a licensing assessment, a migration plan from Web to Standard, or help evaluating whether Express or Azure SQL fits your workload — let's talk. It's better to plan this now rather than triage it later. 😉

SQL Server Consulting