---
title: Upgrading
---

Supabase ships fast and we endeavor to add all new features to existing projects wherever possible. In some cases, access to new features require upgrading or migrating your Supabase project.

<Admonition type="tip">

This guide refers to upgrading the Postgres version of your Supabase Project. For scaling your compute size, refer to the [Compute and Disk page](/docs/guides/platform/compute-and-disk).

</Admonition>

You can upgrade your project using in-place upgrades or by pausing and restoring your project.

<ShowUntil date="2024-12-17">
<Admonition type="tip">

The Migrating and Upgrading guide has been divided into two sections. To migrate between Supabase projects, see [Migrating within Supabase](/docs/guides/platform/migrating-within-supabase).

</Admonition>
</ShowUntil>

## In-place upgrades

<Admonition type="note">

For security purposes, passwords for custom roles are not backed up and, following a restore, they would need to be reset. See [here](/docs/guides/platform/backups#daily-backups) for more details

</Admonition>

In-place upgrades uses `pg_upgrade`. For projects larger than 1GB, this method is generally faster than a pause and restore cycle, and the speed advantage grows with the size of the database.

1. Plan for an appropriate downtime window, and ensure you have reviewed the [caveats](#caveats) section of this document before executing the upgrade.
1. Use the "Upgrade project" button on the [Infrastructure](/dashboard/project/_/settings/infrastructure) section of your dashboard.

Additionally, if the upgrade should fail, your original database would be brought back up online and be able to service requests.

As a rough rule of thumb, pg_upgrade operates at ~100MBps (when executing an upgrade on your data). Using the size of your database, you can use this metric to derive an approximate sense of the downtime window necessary for the upgrade. During this window, you should plan for your database and associated services to be unavailable.

## Pause and restore

<Admonition type="note">

We recommend using the In-place upgrade method, as it is faster, and more reliable. Additionally, only Free-tier projects are eligible to use the Pause and Restore method.

</Admonition>

When you pause and restore a project, the restored database includes the latest features. This method _does_ include downtime, so be aware that your project will be inaccessible for a short period of time.

1. On the [General Settings](/dashboard/project/_/settings/general) page in the Dashboard, click **Pause project**. You will be redirected to the home screen as your project is pausing. This process can take several minutes.
1. After your project is paused, click **Restore project**. The restoration can take several minutes depending on how much data your database has. You will receive an email once the restoration is complete.

Note that a pause + restore upgrade involves tearing down your project's resources before bringing them back up again. If the restore process should fail, manual intervention from Supabase support will be required to bring your project back online.

## Caveats

Regardless of the upgrade method, a few caveats apply:

### Logical replication

If you are using logical replication, the replication slots will not be preserved by the upgrade process. You will need to manually recreate them after the upgrade with the method `pg_create_logical_replication_slot`. Refer to the Postgres docs on [Replication Management Functions](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/functions-admin.html#FUNCTIONS-REPLICATION) for more details about the method.

### Breaking changes

Newer versions of services can break functionality or change the performance characteristics you rely on. If your project is eligible for an upgrade, you will be able to find your current service versions from within [the Supabase dashboard](/dashboard/project/_/settings/infrastructure).

Breaking changes are generally only present in major version upgrades of Postgres and PostgREST. You can find their respective release notes at:

- [Postgres](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/release/)
- [PostgREST](https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest/releases)

If you are upgrading from a significantly older version, you will need to consider the release notes for any intermediary releases as well.

### Time limits

Starting from 2024-06-24, when a project is paused, users then have a 90-day window to restore the project on the platform from within Supabase Studio.

The 90-day window allows Supabase to introduce platform changes that may not be backwards compatible with older backups. Unlike active projects, static backups can't be updated to accommodate such changes.

During the 90-day restore window a paused project can be restored to the platform with a single button click from [Studio's dashboard page](/dashboard/projects).

<Image
  zoomable
  alt="Project Paused: 90 Days Remaining"
  src="/docs/img/guides/platform/paused-90-day.png"
/>

After the 90-day restore window, you can download your project's backup file, and Storage objects from the project dashboard. You can restore the data in the following ways:

- [Restore a backup to a new Supabase project](/docs/guides/platform/migrating-within-supabase/dashboard-restore)
- [Restore a backup locally](/docs/guides/local-development/restoring-downloaded-backup)

<Image
  zoomable
  alt="Project Paused: 90 Days Remaining"
  src="/docs/img/guides/platform/paused-dl-backup.png"
/>

If you upgrade to a paid plan while your project is paused within the 90-day restore window, any expired one-click restore options are reenabled. Since the backup was taken outside the backwards compatibility window, it may fail to restore. If you have a problem restoring your backup after upgrading, contact [Support](/support).

<Image
  zoomable
  alt="Project Paused: 90 Days Remaining"
  src="/docs/img/guides/platform/paused-paid-tier.png"
/>

### Disk sizing

When upgrading, the Supabase platform will "right-size" your disk based on the current size of the database. For example, if your database is 100GB in size, and you have a 200GB disk, the upgrade will reduce the disk size to 120GB (1.2x the size of your database).

### Objects dependent on Postgres extensions

In-place upgrades do not support upgrading of databases containing reg\* data types referencing system OIDs.
If you have created any objects that depend on the following extensions, you will need to recreate them after the upgrade.

### `pg_cron` records

[pg_cron](https://github.com/citusdata/pg_cron#viewing-job-run-details) does not automatically clean up historical records. This can lead to extremely large `cron.job_run_details` tables if the records are not regularly pruned; you should clean unnecessary records from this table prior to an upgrade.

During an in-place upgrade, the `pg_cron` extension gets dropped and recreated. Prior to this process, the `cron.job_run_details` table is duplicated to avoid losing historical logs. The instantaneous disk pressure created by duplicating an extremely large details table can cause at best unnecessary performance degradation, or at worst, upgrade process failures.

### Extensions

In-place upgrades do not currently support upgrading of databases using extensions older than the following versions:

- TimescaleDB 2.16.1
- plv8 3.1.10

To upgrade to a newer version of Postgres, you will need to drop the extensions before the upgrade, and recreate them after the upgrade.

#### Authentication method changes - deprecating md5 in favor of scram-sha-256

The md5 hashing method has [known weaknesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Security) that make it unsuitable for cryptography.
As such, we are deprecating md5 in favor of [scram-sha-256](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/auth-password.html), which is the default and most secure authentication method used in the latest Postgres versions.

We automatically migrate Supabase-managed roles' passwords to scram-sha-256 during the upgrade process, but you will need to manually migrate the passwords of any custom roles you have created, else you won't be able to connect using them after the upgrade.

To identify roles using the md5 hashing method and migrate their passwords, you can use the following SQL statements after the upgrade:

```sql
-- List roles using md5 hashing method
SELECT
  rolname
FROM pg_authid
WHERE rolcanlogin = true
  AND rolpassword LIKE 'md5%';

-- Migrate a role's password to scram-sha-256
ALTER ROLE <role_name> WITH PASSWORD '<password>';
```

### Database size reduction

As part of the upgrade process, maintenance operations such as [vacuuming](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/routine-vacuuming.html#ROUTINE-VACUUMING) are also executed. This can result in a reduction in the reported database size.

### Post-upgrade validation

Supabase performs extensive pre- and post-upgrade validations to ensure that the database has been correctly upgraded. However, you should plan for your own application-level validations, as there might be changes you might not have anticipated, and this should be budgeted for when planning your downtime window.

## Specific upgrade notes

### Upgrading to Postgres 17

In projects using Postgres 17, the following extensions are deprecated:

- `plcoffee`
- `plls`
- `plv8`
- `timescaledb`
- `pgjwt`

Projects planning to upgrade from Postgres 15 to Postgres 17 need to first disable these extensions in the [Supabase Dashboard](/dashboard/project/_/database/extensions).

`pgjwt` was enabled by default on every Supabase project up until Postgres 17. If you weren’t explicitly using `pgjwt` in your project, it’s most likely safe to disable.

Existing projects on lower versions of Postgres are not impacted, and the extensions will continue to be supported on projects using Postgres 15, until the end of life of Postgres 15 on the Supabase platform.
