Quickstart

This guide walks you through creating your first ColdPlane backup and running a query against it.

Try it locally (no account required)

You can try ColdPlane immediately without signing up. Local mode stores backups on your machine and queries them locally.

1. Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://get.coldplane.com | sh

2. Create a local backup

coldplane backup create --local \
  --db-url "postgres://user:pass@localhost:5432/mydb" \
  --tables "users,orders"

3. Query your data locally

coldplane query run --local \
  --backup-id users_20250401_120000 \
  --sql "SELECT count(*) FROM restore_input"

Find your backup name with coldplane backup list --local.

Local backups are saved to ~/.coldplane/backups/. When you are ready for encrypted cloud storage and team features, sign up and drop the --local flag.

Cloud quickstart

For encrypted cloud backups with team access and retention management, sign up for a free account.

1. Install the CLI

curl -fsSL https://get.coldplane.com | sh

2. Authenticate

coldplane auth set-key --key <your-api-key>

You can generate an API key from the ColdPlane Dashboard.

3. Create a backup

coldplane backup create \
  --db-url "postgres://user:pass@host:5432/mydb" \
  --tables "users,orders"

4. Query your data

coldplane query run \
  --backup-id <backup-id> \
  --table users \
  --sql "SELECT count(*) FROM users"

You can find your backup ID with coldplane backup list.

Cloud queries run directly against cold storage. No rehydration or restore step is needed.

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