Last updated January 11, 2023

Heroku Postgres is a managed SQL database service provided directly by Heroku. You can access a Heroku Postgres database from any language with a PostgreSQL driver, including all languages officially supported by Heroku.

In addition to a variety of management commands available via the Heroku CLI, Heroku Postgres provides a web dashboard, the ability to share queries with dataclips, and several other helpful features.

Understanding Heroku Postgres Plans

Heroku Postgres offers a variety of plans, spread across different tiers of service: Essential, Standard, Premium, Private and Shield. For more information on what each plan provides, see Choosing the Right Heroku Postgres Plan.

Pricing information for Heroku Postgres plans is available on the Heroku Postgres add-on page.

If your app’s requirements eventually outgrow the resources provided by the initial plan you select, you can easily upgrade your database.

Provisioning Heroku Postgres

For more information about how to provision a Heroku Postgres database, see Provisioning Heroku Postgres.

Local Setup

Heroku recommends running Postgres locally to ensure parity between environments. For more information about how to set up Heroku Postgres to run in your local environment, see Local Setup for Heroku Postgres.

Designating a Primary Database

The DATABASE_URL config var designates the URL of an app’s primary Heroku Postgres database. For apps with a single database, its URL is automatically assigned to this config var.

For apps with multiple Postgres databases, set the primary database with heroku pg:promote. Common use cases include leader/follower high-availability setups or as part of the database upgrade process.

Sharing Heroku Postgres between Applications

You can share a single Heroku Postgres database between multiple apps with the heroku addons:attach command:

$ heroku addons:attach my-originating-app::DATABASE --app example-app
Attaching postgresql-addon-name to example-app... done
Setting HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_BRONZE vars and restarting example-app... done, v11

The attached database’s URL is assigned to a config var with the name format HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_[COLOR]_URL. In the example above, the config var’s name is HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_BRONZE_URL.

A shared database isn’t necessarily the primary database for any given app that it’s shared with. You promote a shared database with the same command that you use for any other database.

You can stop sharing your Heroku Postgres instance with another app with the heroku addons:detach command:

$ heroku addons:detach HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_BRONZE --app example-app
Detaching HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_BRONZE to postgresql-addon-name from example-app... done
Unsetting HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_BRONZE config vars and restarting example-app... done, v11

Version Support

The PostgreSQL project releases new major versions on a yearly basis. Heroku Postgres supports each major version shortly after its release. For more information about version support on Heroku Postgres, see Heroku Postgres Version Support.

Legacy Infrastructure

Heroku occasionally deprecates old versions of its infrastructure. See this article on deprecating legacy infrastructure.

Performance Analytics

For more information about performance analytics, see Heroku Postgres Performance Analytics.

Using the CLI

For more information about managing Heroku Postgres using the CLI, see Managing Heroku Postgres Using the CLI.

Connecting to Heroku Postgres

For more information about connecting to Heroku Postgres, see Connecting to Heroku Postgres.

Migrating between Plans

See this detailed guide on updating and migrating between database plans.

Data Residency

When a database gets provisioned, the data associated with that database is stored within the region in which it’s created. However, services ancillary to Heroku Postgres and the systems managing the database fleet might not be located within the same region as the provisioned databases:

• Postgres Continuous Protection for disaster recovery stores the base backup and write-ahead logs in the same region that the database is located.
• Application logs are routed to Logplex, which is hosted in the US. In addition to logs from your application, this includes System logs and Heroku Postgres logs from any database attached to your application.
• Logging of Heroku Postgres queries and errors can be blocked by using the --block-logs flag when creating the database with heroku addons:create heroku-postgres:....
• PG Backup snapshots are stored in the US. To capture logical backups in another region, see Heroku Postgres Logical Backups.
• Dataclips are stored in the US.

Blocking Logs

At add-on creation time, a flag can be passed to prevent logging of queries that get run against the database. If this option is turned on, it can’t be turned off after the database has been provisioned. If you must turn it off after it has been turned on, a migration to a new database will be required.

$ heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:standard-0 -a example-app --block-logs

Removing the Add-on

You must remove the add-on to destroy your Heroku Postgres database.

$ heroku addons:destroy heroku-postgresql

If you have two databases of the same type you must remove the add-on using its config var name. For example, to remove the HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GRAY_URL, you would run:

heroku addons:destroy HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_GRAY

If the removed database was the same one used in DATABASE_URL, that DATABASE_URL config var is unset on the app.

Support

All Heroku Postgres support and runtime issues should be submitted via one of the Heroku Support channels.