We're excited to announce the release candidates for Elastic Stack 9.0! 
We encourage developers to download, test, and provide feedback as we refine these versions.
The quickest way to test it out is via start local, for 9.0 RC1…
curl -fsSL https://elastic.co/start-local | sh -s -- -v 9.0.0-rc1
What's New?
Enhanced Querying & Performance
- ES|QL Updates: New LOOKUP JOIN (Tech Preview) enables SQL-like JOINs, plus expanded analytical functions.
- Improved Query Performance: Faster case-insensitive matching and partial result retrieval from long-running queries.
- Lucene 10 Upgrade in 9.0: Better search parallelism, I/O handling, and indexing efficiency.
Log Management & Storage
- LogsDB: Now default in 9.0, optimizing log storage.
- Faster Log Ingestion: Synthetic recovery source (Enterprise) speeds up indexing.
- More Efficient Sorting: Route on sort fields (Enterprise) for improved storage.
API & Management Enhancements
- Reindex Data Streams (GA): Simplifies major version upgrades.
- Create Index from Source (GA): Easier reindexing with pre-configured settings.
Kibana & AI-Powered Insights
- ES|QL Editor Upgrades: LOOKUP JOIN support, better autocomplete, and smoother query transitions.
- New Table Search & Highlighting: Better data exploration.
- AI Assistant for Logs (Discover): AI-driven insights and automatic log-level breakdowns.
Try it out and share your feedback! These updates bring faster performance, smarter querying, and better log analysis to your Elastic workflow.