Managed Databases Are Now Available in Laravel Forge

You can now provision fully managed Postgres clusters directly from the Forge dashboard, with no extra accounts, separate billing, or complex database administration required.

Running a database yourself is often the hardest part of self-hosting. You handle security patches, backups, replication, failover, and storage, and a single missed step can lead to data loss. Forge has always handled server provisioning, deployments, and even scheduled database backups, but until now, the database server itself was your responsibility.

With managed databases, Forge delivers peace of mind. It provisions, patches, backs up, and monitors your cluster for you. Everything lives inside your organization, billed hourly alongside your servers, with no separate provider account to manage.

To learn more, read the documentation for managed databases.

How to Create a Managed Database Cluster in Forge

To create a new managed database cluster in Forge, navigate to your organization's Resources page and click Create database cluster. You will be asked to configure a few options:

• Cluster name: a unique name you choose at creation. This cannot be changed later.
• Engine: Postgres 17 or Postgres 18.
• Region: the datacenter region where the cluster will be provisioned.
• Private network: choose “Laravel managed” for automatic networking, or select an existing VPC in the chosen region.
• Compute size: the CPU and memory allocation for your cluster. Sizes are grouped into Standard, General Purpose, and Storage Optimized tiers.
• Storage: disk storage for your cluster, adjustable in increments of 10 GB.
• High availability: when enabled, Forge maintains a standby node that replaces the primary automatically if it fails.

The estimated monthly cost updates in real time as you adjust each option.

Connecting a Managed Database to Your Forge Servers

To connect an existing managed database to your Forge servers, know that, by default, managed database clusters only accept connections from servers within the same private network. If your Forge servers are in the same organization and region, they can connect to the cluster without any additional configuration.

If you need to connect from outside the private network, including servers hosted by other providers, you can enable public access on the cluster's Settings page. Enabling public access allows connections from any IP address. A confirmation prompt is shown before this setting is saved.

Connection credentials are available on the cluster overview page.

What's Included in Forge’s Managed Databases

• Automated daily backups: Your data is backed up every day at 5:30 AM UTC by default, at no extra cost. You can change the time on the cluster's Backups page.
• Point-in-time recovery: Recover from accidental deletions, bad migrations, or data corruption by restoring to any point within the last seven days. Both point-in-time and daily backup restores create a new cluster, leaving your existing one untouched.
• High availability: Your database stays online even if the primary node fails, with a standby that takes over automatically. You can enable or disable it at any time from Settings.
• Read replicas: Your primary handles less load by distributing read queries across additional nodes, each with its own connection endpoint.
• Real-time monitoring: Catch problems early with live charts for CPU, memory, and disk usage, viewable over the last one day, seven days, or 30 days.
• Maintenance windows: Your cluster stays up to date without manual intervention, with patches applied automatically during a window you configure by day and hour (UTC).

Pricing

Managed database clusters in Laravel Forge are billed hourly. For the full pricing details, check our docs.

The monthly cost depends on three factors:

• Compute size: each size tier has a base monthly cost.
• Additional storage: storage beyond the base allocation is charged per 10 GB block.
• High availability: enabling it doubles the monthly cost to account for the standby node.

You can see your current usage and billing history on your organization's Usage page.

Everything Else You Need to Know

Can I connect existing Forge servers to a managed database?

Yes. If public access is enabled, any server can connect to a managed database cluster. If public access is disabled, only servers on the same private network and within the same organization can connect.

Does high availability mean zero-downtime failover?

Yes. When high availability is enabled, Forge maintains a standby node in sync with your primary. If the primary fails, the standby takes over automatically, with no manual intervention required. Forge guarantees 99.95% uptime for clusters running with high availability enabled.

What happens to my data if I cancel my Forge subscription?

When you cancel, your managed database clusters enter a seven-day grace period. After that, the cluster and all its data are permanently deleted with no way to recover them. If you plan to cancel, make sure to export your data before the grace period ends.

How do I migrate an existing Postgres database to a managed cluster?

Migration is a manual process. You need to export your data from your existing database and import it into your new managed cluster. There are two ways to do this:

• pg_dump and pg_restore: The most direct option. Export your database with pg_dump and restore it into the managed cluster with pg_restore.
• A database GUI like TablePlus: A good option if you prefer a visual interface. TablePlus can connect to both your existing database and your new managed cluster using the connection credentials available on the cluster overview page.

In both cases, plan for some downtime during the migration window while data is transferred.

Let Forge Manage Your Database

Managed databases give you a production-ready Postgres cluster without the operational overhead. Backups, patching, failover, and monitoring are all handled for you, inside the same dashboard you already use to manage your servers and deployments.

If you are already a Forge user, go to your organization's Resources page and create a cluster today. If you are new to Forge, sign up to never worry about server and database management again.

To learn more about managed databases in Forge, read the full documentation.