Heroku Postgres Upgrade Guide: Simplify Your Move to Version 17

Summary

Heroku Postgres 17 is now available, and the platform introduces a simplified, self-service path for upgrading managed databases. The new heroku pg:upgrade:* commands cover preparation, manual execution, cancellation, dry runs, and progress tracking, while email notifications report major stages and detected issues. Essential-tier databases can be upgraded directly with pg:upgrade:run; Standard-tier and higher databases can use a dry run, schedule an upgrade for the next maintenance window, or run it manually, with followers upgraded automatically. The in-place workflow uses an internal replica, leaves DATABASE_URL and other config vars unchanged, and typically reduces downtime to about five to ten minutes. The legacy heroku pg:upgrade command will be deprecated soon, although the traditional follower approach remains available.

Takeaways

1. 1

   Essential-tier upgrades require no preparation step: pg:upgrade:run starts the upgrade, using the latest supported version unless --version is supplied.

2. 2

   For Standard-tier and higher databases, pg:upgrade:dryrun tests a copy through a follower, while pg:upgrade:prepare schedules production work for the next maintenance window.

3. 3

   Known data or schema issues trigger email remediation steps; unexpected issues can prompt a support ticket, and the upgrade may be automatically aborted for safety.