Connecting

You get two connection strings. They reach the same database.

postgresql://booking_owner:…@ep-little-morning-b130w8eo-pooler.c-5.eu-central-1.aws.neon.tech/booking?sslmode=require&channel_binding=require
postgresql://booking_owner:…@ep-little-morning-b130w8eo.c-5.eu-central-1.aws.neon.tech/booking?sslmode=require&channel_binding=require

Why two

Postgres allocates a process per connection, and a small compute allows a few hundred. A serverless application opens one per invocation, so a traffic spike becomes too many clients already at exactly the moment you least want it.

The pooled endpoint puts PgBouncer in front, so thousands of client connections share a few real ones. The cost is that it is in transaction pooling mode: session-level state does not survive between statements. In practice that means LISTEN/NOTIFY, advisory locks held across statements, and some migration tools do not work through it — which is what the direct endpoint is for.

Use pooled unless something breaks. Then use direct for that one thing.

Examples

1import { Pool } from "pg";2 3const pool = new Pool({ connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URL });4const { rows } = await pool.query("select now()");

1import postgres from "postgres";2 3const sql = postgres(process.env.DATABASE_URL);4const rows = await sql`select now()`;

1psql "$DATABASE_URL_DIRECT"

Any Postgres client works — this is not an API of ours with a driver to learn. Prisma, Drizzle, Sequelize, SQLAlchemy, ActiveRecord and psql all connect to it the way they connect to any Postgres.

On a runtime with no TCP sockets — Cloudflare Workers, some edge functions — use a driver that speaks Postgres over HTTP. @neondatabase/serverless is the one that matches the host below, and it takes the same connection string.

Who runs the machine

The hostname says neon.tech, and rather than dress that up: the Postgres underneath is Neon, resold by us. We create it, set its limits, meter it and put it on your bill; they run the hardware. It is listed among our subprocessors with everyone else.

Worth knowing because of what it means for you rather than for us:

• It is not a fork. Standard Postgres 18, standard extensions, standard wire protocol. Nothing here is a dialect you would have to unlearn.
• You can leave. pg_dump against the direct string is a complete copy, and it restores into any Postgres anywhere. Nothing about this is a lock-in designed to be hard to undo.
• Your account is with us. One invoice, one support conversation, one place that owes you an answer when a query is slow.

TLS is not optional

Both strings carry sslmode=require and channel_binding=require, and the server refuses anything less. Do not strip them. A client that cannot do channel binding can drop that parameter; sslmode stays.

Keep it in an environment variable

The string contains a password. It belongs in your platform's secret store, not in a repository, and it is worth reading replacing the password before the first time somebody pastes it into a chat window.