Detailed Comparison: Oracle 19c / 21c vs Oracle 23ai (23c)

You may wonder main differences between Oracle Database Releases. You may also see many blog&technical article about those topic.

I also want to share similar information at my blog.

Enjoy

Feature Area	Oracle 19c	Oracle 21c	Oracle 23ai (23c)
Release Type	Long-Term Support (LTS)	Innovation Release	Long-Term Support (LTS)
Release Year	2019	2020	2023 (Dev Free) / 2024 (Prod)
Support End Date	Premier: Apr 2027Extended: Apr 2030	Dec 2024 (No Extended)	Est. Premier: ~2028Est. Extended: ~2031
Multimodal Support	Yes (JSON, XML, Spatial, Graph, etc.)	Enhanced JSON & Graph	Advanced JSON-Relational Duality, native vector, AI support
AI & ML Integration	Basic in-database ML	Same as 19c	Built-in vector search, AI optimizations, ML enhancements
JSON Enhancements	Limited (requires Oracle-specific syntax)	Improved indexing	JSON Relational Duality: Native JSON and table co-existence
Vector Search	❌ No	❌ No	✅ Yes – for GenAI, semantic search use cases
Blockchain Tables	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Enhanced with new features
AutoML & In-DB ML	✅ Oracle Machine Learning	✅	✅ Improved, with SQL and Python integration
Sharding	✅ Yes	✅ Yes	✅ Yes, with better automation
Native REST/GraphQL	REST only (via ORDS)	REST APIs	✅ REST + GraphQL support
App Dev (App Simple)	Traditional SQL+PLSQL	Incremental improvements	✅ JSON-Relational duality, modern app-friendly features
Microservices Support	Limited (via external tools)	Some improvements	✅ Built-in eventing, JSON APIs, DevOps-ready
Autonomous DB Features	Partial	Enhanced	Fully Compatible + GenAI integrations in OCI