Migrate from Render to Neon Postgres
Learn how to migrate your database from Render to Neon Postgres using pg_dump and pg_restore
This guide describes how to migrate a database from Render to Neon Postgres.
We use the pg_dump
and pg_restore
utilities, which are part of the Postgres client toolset. pg_dump
works by dumping both the schema and data in a custom format that is compressed and suitable for input into pg_restore
to rebuild the database.
Prerequisites
-
A Render project containing the Postgres database you want to migrate.
-
A Neon project to move the data to.
For detailed information on creating a Neon project, see Create a project. Make sure to create a project with the same Postgres version as your Render deployment.
-
pg_dump
andpg_restore
utilities installed on your local machine. These typically come with a Postgres installation.We recommended that you use the
pg_dump
andpg_restore
programs from the latest version of Postgres, to take advantage of enhancements that might have been made in these programs. To check the version ofpg_dump
orpg_restore
, use the-V
option. For example:pg_dump -V
. -
Review our guide on Migrating data from Postgres for more comprehensive information on using
pg_dump
andpg_restore
.
Prepare your Render database
This section describes how to prepare your Render database for exporting data.
To illustrate the migration workflow, we use the LEGO Database. This database contains information about LEGO sets, parts, and themes. We load the LEGO database into Render using the psql command-line tool.
Retrieve Render connection details
- Log in to your Render account and navigate to your project dashboard.
- From the overview page, select the service (of the type
PostgreSQL
) corresponding to your database. - From the left sidebar, click on Info and under the Connections section, you'll find the connection parameters in different formats.
- Copy the value for the
External Database URL
field.
You'll need this connection string for pg_dump
to connect to the Render database.
Export data with pg_dump
Now that you have your Render connection details, you can export your data using pg_dump
:
Replace <render_external_database_url>
with your Render External Database URL.
This command includes these arguments:
-Fc
: Outputs the dump in custom format, which is compressed and suitable for input intopg_restore
.-v
: Runspg_dump
in verbose mode, allowing you to monitor the dump operation.-d
: Specifies the connection string for your Render database.-f
: Specifies the output file name.--schema=public
: Specifies the schema to dump. In this case, we only want to back up tables in thepublic
schema.
If the command was successful, you'll see output similar to the following:
important
Avoid using pg_dump
over a pooled connection string (see PgBouncer issues 452 & 976 for details). Use an unpooled connection string instead.
Prepare your Neon destination database
This section describes how to prepare your destination Neon Postgres database to receive the imported data.
Create the Neon database
To maintain consistency with your Render setup, you might want to create a new database in Neon with the same database name used in Render.
-
Connect to your Neon project using the Neon SQL Editor or a Postgres client like
psql
. -
Create a new database. For example, if your Render database was named
lego
, run:
For more information, see Create a database.
Retrieve Neon connection details
-
In the Neon Console, go to your project dashboard.
-
Find the Connection Details widget.
-
Copy the connection string. It will look similar to this:
Restore data to Neon with pg_restore
Now you can restore your data to the Neon database using pg_restore
:
Replace <neon-connection-string>
with your Neon connection string.
This command includes these arguments:
-d
: Specifies the connection string for your Neon database.-v
: Runspg_restore
in verbose mode.--no-owner
: Skips setting the ownership of objects as in the original database.--no-acl
: Skips restoring access privileges for objects as in the original database.
We recommend using the --no-owner
and --no-acl
options to skip restoring ownership and access control settings from Render. After migrating the data, review and configure the appropriate roles and privileges for all objects, as needed. For more information, refer to the section on Database object ownership considerations.
If the command was successful, you'll see output similar to the following:
Verify the migration
After the restore process completes, you should verify that your data has been successfully migrated:
-
Connect to your Neon database using the Neon SQL Editor or psql.
-
Run some application queries to check your data. For example, if you're using the LEGO database, you can run the following:
-
Compare the results with those from running the same queries on your Render database to ensure data integrity.
Clean up
After successfully migrating and verifying your data on Neon, you can update your application's connection strings to point to your new Neon database. We recommend that you keep your Render database dump file (render_dump.bak
) as a backup until you've verified that the migration was successful.
Other migration options
While this guide focuses on using pg_dump
and pg_restore
, there are other migration options available:
-
Logical replication
For larger databases or scenarios where you need to minimize downtime, you might consider using logical replication. See our guide on Logical replication for more information.
-
CSV export/import
For smaller datasets or specific tables, you might consider exporting to CSV from Render and then importing to Neon. See Import data from CSV for more details on this method.
Reference
For more information on the Postgres utilities used in this guide, refer to the following documentation:
Need help?
Join our Discord Server to ask questions or see what others are doing with Neon. Users on paid plans can open a support ticket from the console. For more detail, see Getting Support.