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SQL Server 2019 is released but I there doesn't appear to be a LocalDB version available for download. Does anyone know if there will be a LocalDB release or if 2017 is the last version?

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The documentation page containing download links for LocalDB 2016 onward is:

Direct download links are not officially supported.

The following LocalDB download links were copied from Scott Hanselman's blog post:

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Depending on your situation, you might not need to download it as you might already have it.

The installer can be obtained from the installation media of any of the editions (except for Express Core), and there are two that are free: Developer Edition, and the Express Edition.

  • If you download the Express Edition:
    • You might be able to select it as a specific feature to download individually, or I just download the full media.
    • Extract the SQLServer2019-x64_ENU-ExpAdv.exe file into the default location ( .\SQLServer2019-x64_ENU-ExpAdv == installation_media_root )
  • You can find the MSI in the following folder: {installation_media_root}\1033_ENU_LP\x64\Setup\x64
  • File is: SQLLOCALDB.MSI

Please note: the "1033" in the file path is the language code (i.e. LCID), and 1033 = "en-US". If you are using a different locale / culture, it will be a different number.

I submitted an update to the LocalDB documentation on 2021-04-09, but it hasn't been merged yet:

Add missing installation source for Express LocalDB #6273

Hopefully they do merge this PR so that others will know of the additional options.

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You can download various versions of localdb (incl. 2019) via https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/configure-windows/sql-server-express-localdb The near the top of that page are to an thin installer, which allows direct installation, but also has a download media option, if you prefer.

Note that the installation for some weird reason doesn't actually upgrade your database instance, just the software. If you've ever used localdb before, you'll need to upgrade that too to use any of the new features; https://medium.com/cloudnimble/upgrade-visual-studio-2019s-localdb-to-sql-2019-da9da71c8ed6 has some instructions to delete/recreate your localdb instance that worked for me; in powershell:

sqllocaldb stop projectsv13
sqllocaldb delete projectsv13
sqllocaldb stop mssqllocaldb
sqllocaldb delete mssqllocaldb
sqllocaldb create MSSQLLocalDB
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