Install pgvector

docker run -d -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret -p 5432:5432 pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie
psql -h localhost -U postgres -c "CREATE EXTENSION vector;"

Choose your platform#

Each tab is a complete path from nothing to a working vector type. Your choice is remembered on the other install pages.

docker run -d --name pgvector \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  -p 5432:5432 \
  -v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql \
  pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie

docker exec -it pgvector psql -U postgres -c "CREATE EXTENSION vector;" \
  -c "SELECT extversion FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'vector';"

sudo apt install -y postgresql-common
sudo /usr/share/postgresql-common/pgdg/apt.postgresql.org.sh
sudo apt install -y postgresql-18 postgresql-18-pgvector

postgresql-18-pgvector:
  Installed: 0.8.7-1.pgdg24.04+1
  Candidate: 0.8.7-1.pgdg24.04+1

sudo dnf install -y https://download.postgresql.org/pub/repos/yum/reporpms/EL-9-x86_64/pgdg-redhat-repo-latest.noarch.rpm
sudo dnf -qy module disable postgresql
sudo dnf install -y postgresql18-server pgvector_18

brew install postgresql@18 pgvector
brew services start postgresql@18
"$(brew --prefix postgresql@18)/bin/psql" postgres -c "CREATE EXTENSION vector;"

set "PGROOT=C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\18"
cd %TEMP%
git clone --branch v0.8.7 https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector.git
cd pgvector
nmake /F Makefile.win
nmake /F Makefile.win install

cd /tmp
git clone --branch v0.8.7 https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector.git
cd pgvector
make
make install   # may need sudo

CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;

Which channels actually ship 0.8.7?#

pgvector 0.8.7 was released on 2026-10-01. Packaging channels catch up at different speeds, and the gap matters: 0.8.2 fixed a buffer overflow in parallel HNSW builds, 0.8.3 fixed possible HNSW index corruption during vacuum, and 0.8.4–0.8.7 fixed further vacuum and IVFFlat memory bugs (full history). We checked each channel's own package index on 2026-10-27:

Sources: Docker Hub tag API, apt.postgresql.org and download.postgresql.org package indexes, formulae.brew.sh, api.pgxn.org, freshports.org, the Postgres.app 2.9.6 build makefiles, api.anaconda.org, pkgs.alpinelinux.org, sources.debian.org and Launchpad.

Download pgvector#

There is no installer or binary download from the pgvector project. What you "download" depends on your platform:

• Source code: every release is a git tag — git clone --branch v0.8.7 https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector.git, or a source tarball from github.com/pgvector/pgvector/tags and PGXN.
• Prebuilt for Linux: packages from the PGDG apt and yum repositories (below).
• Prebuilt container: docker pull pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie.
• Windows: no official binaries — see your options.

Docker#

The pgvector/pgvector images are the official postgres images with pgvector compiled in (the Dockerfile is FROM postgres:$PG_MAJOR-$DEBIAN_CODENAME), so every POSTGRES_* variable and init-script convention works the same way.

Which tag should I use?#

Podman runs the same images; use the fully qualified name, docker.io/pgvector/pgvector:pg18-trixie, if your registries config doesn't search Docker Hub by default.

There is no latest tag and no Alpine variant. Compressed images are about 160–170 MB for current majors on both amd64 and arm64. For production, pin the pgvector version (0.8.7-pg18-trixie) so an image pull never changes your extension version underneath you.

The Postgres 18 volume path change#

Docker command builder#

Pick a version and options; the builder emits a docker run command and an equivalent compose.yaml with the right volume path and shared-memory size.

Adding pgvector to your own image#

If you already maintain a Dockerfile on the official postgres image, add the PGDG package instead of switching base images (the official image already has the PGDG apt repository configured):

FROM postgres:18-trixie
RUN apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends postgresql-18-pgvector \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

Linux packages#

On Debian, Ubuntu, RHEL and derivatives the reliable source is the PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) repository — the same people who package Postgres itself. On 2026-10-27 it had 0.8.7 for every supported Postgres major we checked. Commands are in the platform tabs above. Package names:

macOS#

Homebrew is the quickest route if you run Postgres from Homebrew: brew install pgvector installs into both postgresql@17 and postgresql@18. Prebuilt bottles are listed for Apple Silicon only, so on Intel Macs Homebrew compiles it. The formula only adds pgvector to postgresql@17 and postgresql@18; for an older formula such as postgresql@16, build from source with that formula's pg_config.

Postgres.app bundles pgvector for Postgres 15 and newer, so there is nothing to install: connect and run CREATE EXTENSION vector;. The stable release (2.9.6) ships pgvector 0.8.6; the 3.0 beta ships 0.8.7.

EDB installer: build from source and point at its pg_config:

export PG_CONFIG=/Library/PostgreSQL/18/bin/pg_config
cd /tmp && git clone --branch v0.8.7 https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector.git && cd pgvector
make
sudo --preserve-env=PG_CONFIG make install

Windows#

pgvector has no official Windows installer. You have four realistic options:

Two things that do not work, despite what older tutorials say: the EDB installer and StackBuilder do not include pgvector (we checked the 17.11 and 18.6 Windows binary distributions — neither contains vector.dll), and conda-forge's Windows build targets Postgres 16 only.

Building with nmake, step by step#

1. Install the compiler. Install Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (or Community) with the Desktop development with C++ workload. You also need Git for Windows.
2. Open the right prompt. Start menu → x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022 → right-click → Run as administrator. The plain Command Prompt or the x86 prompt will not work.
3. Point at your Postgres. set "PGROOT=C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\18" — adjust the major version to match your install.
4. Build and install. Clone the v0.8.7 tag and run nmake /F Makefile.win then nmake /F Makefile.win install (commands in the Windows tab). The install step copies vector.dll into lib and the SQL/control files into share\extension.
5. Enable it. In psql or pgAdmin's Query Tool: CREATE EXTENSION vector;

Windows build errors#

Building from source (Linux and macOS)#

Building from source gets you any version on any platform with a C compiler. You need the server development headers: postgresql-server-dev-18 on Debian/Ubuntu, postgresql18-devel on PGDG RHEL.

• Several Postgres installs? make builds against whichever pg_config is first on your PATH. Set export PG_CONFIG=/usr/lib/postgresql/18/bin/pg_config explicitly, run make clean, and use sudo --preserve-env=PG_CONFIG make install.
• Building on one machine, running on another? pgvector compiles with -march=native by default on some platforms, which can crash with Illegal instruction on a different CPU. Use make OPTFLAGS="" — the official Docker images do exactly this.

Managed Postgres providers#

You can't install extensions on managed services, but pgvector is pre-installed nearly everywhere. The version is whatever the provider ships — and most lag well behind 0.8.7. Documented versions on 2026-10-27:

az postgres flexible-server parameter set \
  --resource-group my-rg --server-name my-server \
  --name azure.extensions --value "vector"

On a managed service, SELECT default_version FROM pg_available_extensions WHERE name = 'vector'; tells you what the provider has made available; if it's newer than your extversion, run ALTER EXTENSION vector UPDATE;. More provider detail on the ecosystem page.

Enable and verify#

Installing puts files on the server; enabling registers the extension in one database. Run this in every database that needs vectors — from psql, pgAdmin's Query Tool, DBeaver's SQL editor or any other client:

demo=# CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS vector;
CREATE EXTENSION

demo=# SELECT extversion FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'vector';
 extversion 
------------
 0.8.7
(1 row)

To see what's installed on the server versus enabled in this database — useful after an upgrade:

demo=# SELECT name, default_version, installed_version FROM pg_available_extensions WHERE name = 'vector';
  name  | default_version | installed_version 
--------+-----------------+-------------------
 vector | 0.8.7           | 0.8.7
(1 row)

Then a 10-second smoke test that the type and an index both work:

CREATE TABLE smoke (id bigserial PRIMARY KEY, embedding vector(3));
INSERT INTO smoke (embedding) VALUES ('[1,2,3]'), ('[4,5,6]');
CREATE INDEX ON smoke USING hnsw (embedding vector_l2_ops);
SELECT id, embedding <-> '[3,1,2]' AS distance FROM smoke ORDER BY distance LIMIT 1;
DROP TABLE smoke;

Ready for real data? The quickstart walks through storing embeddings, and the index planner sizes your first index.

If CREATE EXTENSION fails#

These are the three errors people actually hit, captured from real sessions.

extension "vector" is not available#

The package isn't installed for this Postgres server. Here's PostgreSQL 16 on our test machine, where only the 18 package was installed:

ERROR:  extension "vector" is not available
DETAIL:  Could not open extension control file "/usr/share/postgresql/16/extension/vector.control": No such file or directory.
HINT:  The extension must first be installed on the system where PostgreSQL is running.

Install the package that matches the server's major version (check with SHOW server_version;). The most common cause is two Postgres installs — the package went into one, your client is connected to the other. In Docker, it means you're running postgres rather than pgvector/pgvector.

permission denied to create extension "vector"#

demo=# SET ROLE app_user;
SET

demo=# CREATE EXTENSION vector;
ERROR:  permission denied to create extension "vector"
HINT:  Must be superuser to create this extension.

demo=# RESET ROLE;
RESET

pgvector is not marked as a trusted extension, so CREATE EXTENSION needs a superuser (or the provider's admin role, such as rds_superuser or azure_pg_admin). Ask an administrator to run it once per database; afterwards ordinary roles can use the type.

type "vector" does not exist#

demo=# \c other
You are now connected to database "other" as user "postgres".

other=# CREATE TABLE t (embedding vector(3));
ERROR:  type "vector" does not exist
LINE 1: CREATE TABLE t (embedding vector(3));
                                  ^

other=# \c demo
You are now connected to database "demo" as user "postgres".

The extension is enabled in a different database, or in a schema that isn't on your search_path (Supabase puts it in extensions). Run CREATE EXTENSION vector; in this database, or qualify the type as extensions.vector. More errors on the troubleshooting page.

Upgrade pgvector#

1. Install the new binaries. apt install postgresql-18-pgvector / brew upgrade pgvector / pull the new Docker tag / rebuild from the new git tag.
2. Update each database. ALTER EXTENSION vector UPDATE; runs the upgrade scripts. If it says the version "is already installed", the server still has the old files — usually a restart or the wrong pg_config.
3. Check. SELECT extversion FROM pg_extension WHERE extname = 'vector';

demo=# ALTER EXTENSION vector UPDATE;
NOTICE:  version "0.8.7" of extension "vector" is already installed
ALTER EXTENSION

No release since 0.3.1 has required rebuilding indexes after an upgrade — the changelog's only reindex instruction is for IVFFlat indexes created on 0.2.7 or 0.3.0. Upgrading from an old release? See upgrade notes by version.

Uninstall#

DROP EXTENSION vector;

Frequently asked questions