PG Orbit · Guides
Connect to Heroku Postgres
Heroku Postgres works with PG Orbit on every plan — including Essential (shared) plans, where many clients choke on restricted catalog permissions. PG Orbit's schema explorer is privilege-aware, so it lists exactly what your role can see.
Get your credentials
In the Heroku dashboard, open your app → Resources → your Postgres add-on → Settings → View Credentials. You'll see host, database, user, port, and password. (CLI: heroku pg:credentials:url.)
Add the connection in PG Orbit
- Tap + in PG Orbit to add a connection
- Host: the ec2-….compute-1.amazonaws.com host from your credentials
- Port: 5432 — Database, Username, Password: from the credentials page
- Turn ON Use SSL (Heroku requires it)
- Tap Test, then save
Good to know
- Heroku rotates credentials — if authentication suddenly fails, re-check View Credentials for the current password.
- Essential-tier databases hide some system catalogs; PG Orbit handles this and shows your tables, views, and matviews normally.