Migrate from Render Postgres

A Render Postgres database moves to SupaHost with pg_dump and a restore. Render services that talk to Postgres directly will need to switch to the Data API (supabase-js or HTTP), because a SupaHost project's Postgres port isn't open to the internet. On Business and Enterprise you can restore over an SSH tunnel; on other plans you use one of the load paths below.

Plan

• Size and plan. The database must fit the plan's shared quota (8 GB Builder, 25 GB Pro, 50 GB Business). Multi-gigabyte restores are simplest on Business.
• Access. In the Render dashboard, open the database and check Access Control: your machine's IP must be allowed for the external connection.
• Downtime. Suspend the services that write to the database before the final dump, or schedule a short maintenance window.

Export from Render

Copy the External Database URL from the database's Connect menu, then:

pg_dump -Fc --no-owner --no-privileges -n public \
  "postgresql://invoices_user:<password>@dpg-abc123-a.frankfurt-postgres.render.com/invoices" \
  -f invoices.dump

Use pg_dump 17 (SupaHost runs Postgres 17). --no-owner --no-privileges drops Render's role names, which don't exist on SupaHost.

Prepare the target

List the extensions the source uses:

select extname from pg_extension where extname <> 'plpgsql';

Create the same ones in your SupaHost project (Studio → SQL editor), in the extensions schema:

create extension if not exists citext with schema extensions;

Load

Business and Enterprise. Add an SSH key in Dashboard → your project → Connect → SSH & CLI, then:

ssh -N -L 6543:127.0.0.1:5432 [email protected] &
pg_restore --no-owner --no-privileges \
  -d "postgresql://postgres:<password>@127.0.0.1:6543/p_app_one" invoices.dump

Builder and Pro.

• For anything larger than a handful of tables, restore the dump into a temporary Supabase Cloud project and use the one-click import.
• For small databases, generate the schema with pg_restore --schema-only -f schema.sql invoices.dump, run it in Studio's SQL editor or through MCP apply_migration, then import each table as CSV in the table editor. Export CSVs from Render with \copy invoices to 'invoices.csv' csv header in psql.

After loading

alter table public.invoices enable row level security;
alter table public.customers enable row level security;
analyze;

Add policies for the rows each user may see. If you imported CSVs into tables with identity or serial columns, reset the sequences (duplicate key after importing data).

Switch the app

On Render, replace DATABASE_URL in each service's environment with:

SUPABASE_URL=https://app-one.acme.supahost.space
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=eyJhbGciOi...   # server-side only

Then move queries to supabase-js. A Render background worker that needs heavy SQL can call a database function with supabase.rpc('close_month', { month: '2026-10' }).

Verify

Compare select count(*) for each important table, compare a few totals (for example select sum(amount_cents) from invoices), and keep the Render database until you're confident.

Related

• Importing data (CSV, SQL dumps)
• Operations too complex for the client library
• Use SupaHost from a Node.js server
• Connecting directly to Postgres