Migrate Neon to Lakebase

This guide describes how to migrate a Neon database to Databricks Lakebase Postgres using pg_dump and pg_restore.

Prerequisites

• A Neon source project with the database you are migrating.
• A Databricks account with permission to create Lakebase resources in the target region.
• Postgres major versions aligned when possible between Neon and Lakebase.
• pg_dump and pg_restore on a stable machine. For install instructions, see Backups with pg_dump.

1. Plan the migration

   • Verify Lakebase supports what you need. Migration assumes Lakebase can run your workload. See Lakebase Postgres for product scope, regions, and operations.
   • Extensions. On Neon, list installed extensions (for example run SELECT * FROM pg_extension;). Compare each one to Postgres extensions on Databricks. If an extension you depend on is not available on Lakebase, plan an alternative.

2. Create a Lakebase project and get a connection string

   1. Create a Lakebase Postgres project and the target database. See Lakebase Postgres.
   2. Add a native Postgres password role for restore. See Create Postgres roles.
   3. Open the Connect modal, select that role, and copy the connection string for use with pg_restore. See Connect to your database.

3. Export data from Neon

   important

   Avoid using pg_dump over a pooled connection string. Use an unpooled connection string instead.

   Dump your Neon database with pg_dump.

   1. In the Neon Console, open your project and click Connect. Turn Connection pooling to off and copy the connection string.
   2. Run:

   pg_dump -Fc -v -d "<neon_connection_string>" -f neon-export.dump

   See Backups with pg_dump for the full procedure and flags.

4. Restore into Lakebase

   Use the Lakebase connection string you copied from Connect for your password role as the pg_restore target.

   Neon dumps include ownership and privileges for Neon-specific roles (for example neondb_owner, neon_superuser, roles used in ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES). Those roles do not exist on Lakebase, so a plain pg_restore often errors on ALTER ... OWNER TO ... and default-privilege grants. That does not mean your tables and data failed to restore; it means ownership and ACL replay could not be applied.

   Use --no-owner so objects are created as the user you connect with, and --no-acl (or -x) so Neon-specific GRANT / ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES statements are skipped. You can grant privileges on Lakebase afterward if your security model needs it.

   pg_restore -v --no-owner --no-acl -d "postgresql://user:password@host/dbname?sslmode=require" neon-export.dump

   For more on ownership when moving between providers, see Database object ownership considerations in Migrate data from Postgres.

5. Decommission Neon (optional)

   After you have tested the Lakebase database (for example with queries and application checks), cut over your apps to Lakebase, and confirmed that everything behaves as expected, you can delete the Neon project if you no longer need it. See Delete a project.

Related docs

Neon

• Region migration
• Migrate data from Postgres

Databricks Lakebase

• Lakebase Postgres
• Authentication overview
• Create Postgres roles
• Postgres compatibility
• Postgres extensions
• Connect to your database
• Authenticate to a database instance