Changelog

Replicating data from Neon for Change Data Capture (CDC) is now GA

Neon is pleased to announce GA support for replicating data from Neon to other data services and platforms for Change Data Capture (CDC). Define Neon as a publisher to stream data to a variety of external destinations, including data warehouses, analytical database services, messaging platforms, event-streaming platforms, and external Postgres databases. This feature is open to all Neon users. To get started, jump into one of our step-by-step logical replication guides.

Replicating data to Neon is now available in Beta

Migrate data to Neon from other Postgres providers by defining Neon as a logical replication subscriber. This feature supports near-zero downtime data migrations, continuous replication setups, and migrating data between Neon projects. Refer to our logical replication migration guides to get started.

As with all of our Beta features, improvements are ongoing. If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear it. Let us know via the Feedback form in the Neon Console or our feedback channel on Discord.

Early Access to Neon Organizations

We're also very happy to announce that Neon Organizations are now available for members of our Early Access Program.

Create a new organization, transfer over your projects, invite your team and get started collaborating. Join now to get a first look at Neon Organizations and other upcoming features before they go live.

See Neon Organizations to learn more.

Console enhancements

We've made several enhancements to the Neon Console to improve your experience and streamline your interaction with our user interface.

• You can now access Neon projects shared with you from the project breadcrumb selector in the Neon Console.
• We added a Created by column to the Branches page in the Neon Console to display the branch creation source. For example, this new column shows if a branch was created in the console or by the Neon Vercel Integration. Additionally, for branches created by the Neon Vercel Integration, a pop-up is displayed when you hover, displaying your GitHub account name, a Vercel Preview link, and a link to the associated branch in your repository.
• The Billing page for Free Plan users now shows a percentage value for branch compute usage.
• We've added a new example to the Neon Console Quickstart showing how to connect to to your Neon database from NestJS. You can access the Quickstart from your Project Dashboard.
• The Primary compute column on the Branches page now shows your configured autoscaling range, replacing the Autoscales badge that was shown previously.

More CLI support for Organizations

For users of Neon's Organizations feature, which is currently in private preview, the Neon CLI projects command now supports an --org-id option, which lets you list or create projects in a specified organization; for example, you can use this command to list all projects belonging to the same organization:

neon projects list --org-id org-xxxx-xxxx
Projects
┌───────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────┬────────────────────┬──────────────────────┐
│ Id                        │ Name                      │ Region Id          │ Created At           │
├───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
│ bright-moon-12345678      │ dev-backend-api           │ aws-us-east-2      │ 2024-07-26T11:43:37Z │
├───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
│ silent-forest-87654321    │ test-integration-service  │ aws-eu-central-1   │ 2024-05-30T22:14:49Z │
├───────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
│ crystal-stream-23456789   │ staging-web-app           │ aws-us-east-2      │ 2024-05-17T13:47:35Z │
└───────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────┴────────────────────┴──────────────────────┘

Additionally, the Neon CLI set-context command now supports setting an organization context so you don't have to specify an organization ID when running CLI commands. To learn more about setting a context for the Neon CLI, see Neon CLI commands — set-context.

Postgres extension updates

The following Postgres extensions were updated to a newer version:

If you installed these extensions previously and want to upgrade to the latest version, please refer to Update an extension version for instructions.

New docs navigation

We've revamped the Neon docs sidebar to enhance navigation across our documentation. The new design features a flatter structure, allowing for easier scanning and quicker access to content. Additionally, we've introduced second-level sidebars to accommodate content expansion within various categories.

If you have any feedback regarding this change, we'd love to hear it. Let us know via the Feedback form in the Neon Console or our feedback channel on Discord.

Safer project deletes

We've heard you. Where it might have felt just a little too easy to delete a project — along with its branches, databases, and roles — we've added a bit more friction to the process. You now have to type out the name of your project by hand before you can delete.

Local File Cache (LFC)-aware autoscaling

As we continue to mature our Autoscaling offering, we've rolled out LFC-aware autoscaling to all regions.

One hour of real-time autoscaling from a selection of your databases.

The idea behind this feature is to improve performance by keeping your entire working set (a subset of frequently accessed or recently used data) in memory. We already recommend this in the docs, and we've now made it a native part of how autoscaling works: your compute now dynamically resizes to fit your working set within the LFC.

If you're not familiar with Neon's Local File Cache (LFC), you can learn more about it here: What is the Local File Cache?

GitHub integration

We've opened up a new feature to all users. Our GitHub integration includes a GitHub app that you can use to connect your Neon projects to GitHub repos.

This new integration makes it easy to:

• Automatically create a database branch with each pull request.
• Build GitHub Actions workflows that interact with Neon. To help you get started, we provide a sample workflow that you can customize.

How it works, in a nutshell:

• Install the GitHub App — the integration installs a GitHub app that you'll use to select repositories you want to connect to Neon.
• Set up variables — the integration sets up a Neon API key secret and a Neon project ID variable in the selected GitHub repository.
• Create workflows — you can then use GitHub Actions to integrate database branching with your workflow for preview environments, testing, and more.

To get started, follow the instructions in our GitHub Integration guide.

We'll be expanding on this feature in future releases. If you have requests or feedback about what you'd like to see in the next update, let us know via the Feedback form in the Neon Console or our feedback channel on Discord.

Password protection for protected branches

When you create a child branch from a protected branch, new passwords are generated for the Postgres roles on the child branch.

This behavior is designed to prevent the exposure of passwords that could be used to access your protected branch. For example, if you designate a production branch as protected, the newly generated passwords for Postgres roles on child branches ensure that you're not exposing product branch credentials in your development and test branches.

The protected branches feature is available with the Neon Scale plan. To learn more, refer to our Protected branches guide.

Improvements for our Free Plan users

For our Free Plan users, we've made a couple of updates to make it easier to track and manage plan allowances:

• We added a Data transfer section to the Billing page in the Neon Console so that you can easily monitor all of your plan allowances in one place. Data transfer is the total volume of data transferred out of Neon (also referred to as "egress") during a given billing period. Neon does not charge for data transfer, but there's a 5 GB per month allowance on the Free Plan. For more, see Data transfer.
• We updated the Resources remaining widget on the Project Dashboard. The Compute time since metric has been renamed to Branch compute time. This metric shows the number of compute hours remaining for branch computes in the current billing period. The Free Plan offers an allowance of 5 compute hours per month on branch computes in addition to 24/7 availability on the default branch compute.

Drizzle Studio updates for our Tables page

We've updated the Drizzle Studio version that powers the Tables page in the Neon Console. Among other updates, this new version of Drizzle Studio brings the following improvements:

• Support for materialized views
• Improved filtering behavior (filtering now occurs when you click Apply)
• The ability to paste a value into a cell without double-clicking
• Delete and update support for tables without a primary key. If there is no primary key, a unique constraint is required. A NULL check is performed if a unique constraint is nullable.

Self-serve logical replication

You can now enable logical replication for your Neon project from the Settings > Beta page in the Neon Console. This feature lets you replicate data changes from Neon to external data services and platforms.

Get started with one of our logical replication guides.

This feature is currently in Beta. If you've got requests or feedback, let us know via the Feedback form in the Neon Console or our feedback channel on Discord.

Clearer language around compute types

Words matter. We've changed our naming convention around compute types: from RW compute and RO Replica to a cleaner, more straightforward Primary compute and Read replica.

With Neon's unique architecture, where we separate storage from compute for copy-on-write branching, you can choose the size and features for the compute that powers your branch's database independently from your data.

• Primary compute — When you create a branch in Neon, a primary compute is automatically created alongside it. You can think of your primary compute as the main engine for your branch. It supports read-write operations, though you can modify database permissions using traditional Postgres roles.
• Read replicas — When you’re ready to scale your application, you can direct read-only traffic to one or more read replicas. Unlike traditional systems where data is physically replicated, Neon’s read replicas access the same data source as the primary read-write compute — at no additional storage cost.

For more information, see:

• Manage computes
• Manage database access
• Read replicas

Neon CLI create-app improvements

The Neon CLI create-app command initializes a new Neon project and bootstraps a full-stack application using your preferred package manager. This feature is very new, but it's maturing fast:

• It now supports Prisma as another ORM option for your bootstrapped application.
• It also now creates two separate branches for your app's Neon project: your main branch and a development branch.

To learn more, see Neon CLI commands — create-app.

Select the right compute size with predefined compute configurations

We've updated the Edit compute and Add new compute drawers in the Neon Console to include predefined compute configurations. With recommended min and max autoscaling settings and autosuspend timeout periods, these configurations make it easier to select the right compute size for your needs.

Computes with more vCPU and memory

We've added support for larger computes with more vCPU and memory. If you're a Neon Scale plan user, you can now scale your computes up to 9 vCPU with 36 GB of RAM or 10 vCPU with 40 GB of RAM.

More branch protection

If you've been following along, you know that we recently added safeguards to prevent you from deleting protected branches. This week, we're extended that protection:

• You can no longer delete a Neon project that has protected branches.
• You can no longer delete computes that belong to protected branches.

The protected branches feature is available with the Neon Scale plan.

Hackable AI starter apps

We've published a new set of hackable, pre-built AI starter apps to help you get up and running with Postgres as your vector store. The set includes different types of AI applications, including:

• AI chatbot
• RAG chatbot
• Semantic search
• Hybrid search
• Reverse image search
• Chat with PDF

Clone an app and make it your own.

For more, check out our new Neon AI Starter Kit, where you'll find links to our starter apps, docs, and a collection of AI applications built with Neon.

Consider sharing your AI app on our #showcase channel on Discord. We'd love to see what you're building.

Updates to the Neon CLI

We've added some terrific new features to our CLI:

• Configurable compute sizing with -cu option, including support for autoscaling

  You can now set your compute size when creating a branch using the CLI. For a fixed compute size, use a single number (e.g., --cu 2). For autoscaling, specify a range with a dash (e.g., --cu 0.5-3).

  Example:

  neon branches add-compute main --cu 0.5-3

  Previously, compute size was determined by your default settings in the console. For more about branching via the CLI, see Neon CLI commands — branches.

• Bootstrap new applications with Neon using the create-app command

  You can now scaffold applications using the CLI with the create-app command. Choose your package manager, framework, ORM, and authentication method, and go. Read the docs for details. This exciting new feature is just getting started. More to come!

Added polish to our Branches page

Branching is still a relatively new concept in the database world, and we want to make your experience with it as intuitive as possible. Here are our latest updates to the Branches page:

• Made it easier to create child branches by adding a clear-as-day Create child branch button to the detailed Branches view. It's still an option under the Actions dropdown, but now you've got the can't-miss button too.
• Easier navigation from your listed database on the Roles and databases tab to the Drizzle Studio-based Tables page, where you can explore and modify your data directly. The actions kebab also includes options to delete your database, as well as navigate to the SQL Editor, and we preserve your database selection as you travel.
• We've changed the metric displayed on the Branches page from active hours to the more helpful compute hours metric, giving you a better sense of how much compute resources a given branch is consuming. For more details about consumption metrics, see Usage metrics.

Even more protection

Last week, we introduced protection against accidentally deleting protected branches. This week, we've added more safeguards:

• Resetting Protected Branches: We now prevent you from using Reset from parent on protected branches (often your production branch) unless you unprotect the branch first.

Fixes & improvements

• Fixed a misleading item in our Quickstart, where we told you that your compute had already started while it was still in transition. Trying to connect in that state would fail. Now, when you see your compute has started, it is definitely started. You can grab your connection string and go.

• The Neon CLI ip-allow command's --primary-only option was deprecated and replaced by a --protected-only option. Additionally, in the Neon API, the primary_branch_only option in the Create project and Update project methods was deprecated and replaced by the protected_branches_only option. The deprecated options will be removed in a future release.

  These are follow-up changes associated with the renaming of "primary branches" to "default branches" that we implemented recently and announced in the June 21, 2024 changelog.

Explore Postgres extensions from the Neon Console

Postgres extensions let you customize and extend your database's capabilities across a broad range of categories: from analytics and data transformation to full-text search and geospatial data processing, and more. Currently, Neon supports over 70 Postgres extensions.

You can now explore all of Neon's supported extensions directly from the console. We've added an Install Extensions section to the Quickstart, which you can open from the Neon Console sidebar.

Click Install to view the required CREATE EXTENSION command, and click Docs to view the extension's documentation.

More protection for protected branches

To better safeguard your protected branches, we've disabled the Delete action for those branches.

Now, before deleting a protected branch, you have to change its status to unprotected.

The Protected branches feature is available with the Neon Scale plan.

Fixes & improvements

• We now preserve your currently selected branch and database when you switch between the SQL Editor and Tables page in the Neon Console.
• Added an Endpoint Inactive legend item to the CPU and Database Size charts on the Monitoring page in the Neon Console. This legend item highlights periods when the compute endpoint was suspended, indicating no available data for those times.
• Moved the system status out of the notifications menu to a system status badge in the main page header, making it easier to check your status in the Neon Console at a glance.
• Added a psql -h pg.neon.tech connection snippet to the Connection Details widget. Instead of supplying a connection string when connecting with psql, you can use psql -h pg.neon.tech at the command line to launch a browser-based authentication flow.
• The notifications icon in the Neon Console page header is now highlighted when there's a new notification.
• Added RAM and vCPU alerts to the Neon Console to let you know when you're getting close to your plan limits.
• We deprecated the Neon CLI branches set-primary command, which is now replaced by the branches set-default command. This is a follow-up change associated with the renaming of "primary branches" to "default branches" that we implemented recently and announced in the June 21, 2024 changelog. Support for the branches set-primary command will be removed in a future release.
• For Free Tier users with access to shared projects, clicking an Upgrade Plan link within the shared project now displays a modal directing the shared project user to contact the project owner.
• The Neon CLI set-context command no longer saves the Neon branch ID to the context file. Branch IDs defined in existing context files remain supported for backward compatibility.
• Fixed an issue in the Neon CLI that caused a branch_id configured in a context file (created with the Neon CLI set-context command) to be used when an unrelated project ID was specified explicitly in a Neon CLI command.
• Fixed an issue that prevented creating a new branch in the Neon Console using a Safari browser when selecting a specific date and time as the branch creation point. The issue resulted in an Invalid Date error.
• Fixed an issue in the Neon Console that caused the history retention setting for a shared project to differ from the project owner's history retention setting.
• Fixed an issue in the Neon Vercel Integration to better handle errors reported for variables set by the integration that were already configured in Vercel. The issue caused preview deployment failures.
• Fixed an issue on the RAM and CPU charts on the Monitoring page in the Neon Console. The vertical axis scale was not displayed properly.
• For Free Tier accounts, we added a Data transfer usage metric to the Resources remaining widget on the Project Dashboard. The Neon Free Tier has a 5 GB per month data transfer allowance.
• Fixed an issue that caused an incorrect connection count limit to be displayed in a usage alert when a compute was in a suspended state.

The next act for the Neon platform

The Neon Product Team spent this week mapping the future state of our platform, focused on shipping faster with Postgres, and what it takes to get there.

We're excited about the big changes coming. While we want to keep some surprises under wraps, we'd like to share a few details here to let you know what to expect, and get any feedback you'd like to offer:

• Full-stack developer workflows — We're building end-to-end developer workflows focused on your database needs. Things like data and schema migrations, CI/CD integrations, and more.
• Complex data workflows — We're also building workflows to handle the more complex needs of managing data across multiple environments. Migrations, data anonymization, and staging deployments are a few examples. If you have ideas on what you'd like to see in these workflows, let us know on Discord.
• Integrated developer applications — We're making plans to solve other hard problems in App DevX, which we'll share when the time is right. Stay tuned.

Join the Neon Early Access Program to be among the first to try these Neon features as they come online.

Finer-grained history configuration

We've introduced finer-grained history retention settings for your Neon project. Neon retains a detailed history of changes for all branches, enabling features like point-in-time restore and time travel connections. However, this history also adds to storage usage. To give you greater control, you can now select from a broader range of preset retention periods down to the hour or set a custom value.

For more information about history retention and the features it supports, see Branch reset and restore.

Manage your billing info in the Neon Console

You can now update your billing information directly from the Billing page in the Neon Console. This includes details like your company name, billing address, and tax ID fields if applicable to your country or region. Previously, updating billing information required opening a support ticket.

Support for pgvector 0.7.2

Neon now supports pgvector version 0.7.2.

For the official list of updates, refer to the pgvector changelog.

If you installed this extension previously and want to upgrade to the latest version, please refer to Update an extension version for instructions.

Fixes & improvements

• Each Neon project is initially created with a "root" branch. Previously, this branch was designated as "primary" by default. To simplify our terminology, we've renamed this designation from "primary" to "default." Where you previously saw primary in relation to branches in the Neon Console, you will now see default. In line with this change, we've added default attributes to the Neon API. These will eventually replace the deprecated primary attributes in response bodies for endpoints like Get branches and Get branch details. Additionally, we've introduced a new Set branch as default endpoint, which will replace the deprecated Set branch as primary endpoint. The deprecated attributes and endpoint will be removed in a future release.
• Minimum autosuspend delay settings are now applied on a plan downgrade. Previously, the minimum allowable settings were not changed when downgrading from one Neon plan to another. For example, when downgrading from the Scale plan (with a minimum autosuspend delay of 1 minute) to the Launch plan, the minimum delay now automatically adjusts to 5 minutes, the default for the Launch plan.
• For Free Tier users, the Usage widget on the Neon Project Dashboard has been renamed to Resources remaining. This widget now displays your remaining storage, compute time, and branch allowances for the current billing period, providing a quick overview of your available resources.
• We fixed an issue in the Neon console where role names containing emoji characters were not displayed correctly. But maybe we shouldn't encourage this. 😅