DigitalOcean is a favorite among developers, indie hackers, and growing startups for its clean developer experience, predictable pricing, and powerful managed services. It's especially appealing to those who want to escape the complexity and overhead of platforms like Google Cloud.

If you're currently hosting your database on Google Cloud SQL and find yourself overwhelmed by its enterprise-focused tooling or rising costs, moving your data to DigitalOcean is a smart move. With managed PostgreSQL and MySQL offerings, DigitalOcean makes it easy to offload operational tasks like backups, updates, and high availability—so you can focus on building your product.

In this guide, I'll show you how to transfer your database from Google Cloud SQL to DigitalOcean using DBConvert Streams — a powerful no-code tool designed to simplify cross-database migrations across cloud environments. For this demo, we will extract data from a MySQL source database and transfer it to a PostgreSQL target database.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following ready:

• ✅ A DigitalOcean account (needed to create both a Droplet for DBConvert Streams and a target Postgres managed database)
• ✅ Credentials for your Google Cloud SQL instance (host, port, username, password, database name)

Step 1: Set Up Your DigitalOcean Database

DigitalOcean offers fully managed MySQL and PostgreSQL databases that are perfect for production workloads.

1. Log in to your DigitalOcean dashboard
2. Click on Databases in the left menu
3. Click Create Database Cluster
4. Select your database engine (in our PostgreSQL)
5. Choose your preferred plan (start small - you can scale up later)
6. Select the datacenter region closest to your users
7. Give your database a name (e.g., "sakila-db")
8. Click Create Database Cluster

DigitalOcean will take a few minutes to provision your database. Once ready, you'll see connection details including hostname, port, username, password, and database name.

Step 2: Deploy DBConvert Streams 1-Click App

The simplest way to deploy DBConvert Streams is through the DigitalOcean Marketplace:

1. Visit https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/dbconvert-streams
2. Click Create DBConvert Streams Droplet
3. Choose your plan (Basic Droplet with 2GB RAM is sufficient for most migrations)
4. Select the same region as your database for optimal performance
5. Add your SSH key or create a password
6. Click Create Droplet

Once your Droplet is provisioned (usually takes about a minute), you can access the DBConvert Streams web interface by navigating to http://<your-droplet-ip> in your browser.

Step 3: Configure Google Cloud SQL for External Access

Before creating a connection in DBConvert Streams, you must configure your Google Cloud SQL instance to accept external connections:

1. In the Google Cloud Console, navigate to your Cloud SQL instance
2. Go to the Connections tab
3. Under Networking, select Add network in the Authorized networks section
4. Add your DigitalOcean Droplet's IP address with a name like "streams-migration"
5. Save your changes

For detailed instructions on configuring Google Cloud SQL for external access, refer to the Google Cloud SQL Connection Guide in the DBConvert Streams documentation.

Step 4: Obtain and Configure Your API Key

When you first open the DBConvert Streams web interface, you'll need to provide an API key:

1. Visit https://streams.dbconvert.com/account in another tab
2. Sign up or log in with your preferred authentication method
3. Copy your API key from the account dashboard
4. Return to your DBConvert Streams interface on your Droplet
5. Paste the API key and click Continue

This activates your free trial with 5GB of data transfer - more than enough for most small to medium database migrations.

DBConvert Streams offers a generous free trial that includes:

• 5GB of data transfer
• 14 days of unlimited access to all features
• No credit card required to start

This gives you ample opportunity to test the migration process before committing to a paid plan, making it risk-free to try for your DigitalOcean managed database migration project.

Step 5: Connect Your Source Database (Google Cloud SQL)

Now that your environment is set up, it's time to connect to your Google Cloud SQL database:

1. From the DBConvert Streams dashboard, click Create Connection
2. Select MySQL database type
3. Enter a descriptive name like "Google Cloud SQL - Sakila"
4. Enter the connection details from Google Cloud SQL:
   • Server: Your instance's public IP address
   • Port: 3306 for MySQL
   • User ID: Your database username
   • Password: Your database password
   • Database: Your database name
5. If using SSL (recommended), enable it and upload any certificates
6. Select Database.
7. Optionally click Test Connection to verify connectivity
8. Click Update
   

Step 6: Connect Your Target Database (DigitalOcean)

Next, set up the connection to your new DigitalOcean database:

1. Click Create Connection again
2. Select PostgreSQL database type
3. Enter a name like "DigitalOcean - Sakila"
4. Enter the DigitalOcean database connection details:
   • Server: The host shown in your DigitalOcean database connection details
   • Port: 25060 (DigitalOcean's default port for managed databases)
   • User ID: The default user (typically "doadmin")
   • Password: The password shown in your connection details
   • Database: Your database name
5. Enable SSL and select "Require" or "Verify-CA" mode
6. For PostgreSQL, you may need to specify the schema (usually "public")
7. Click Test Connection to verify
8. Click Update

Step 7: Configure Your Migration Stream

Now it's time to set up the actual migration process:

• Click Create Stream from the dashboard

• Select your Google Cloud SQL connection as the source and click Next

• You'll see a list of tables from your database - select the ones you want to migrate (or Select All)
• Choose the data transfer mode:

– Convert/Migrate: Best for one-time migrations (what we need now)

– CDC/Stream: For continuous real-time replication (useful for zero-downtime migrations)

For our sample we choose Convert/Migrate mode

Select your DigitalOcean database as the target

Review your configuration and click Save

Step 8: Start and Monitor the Transfer

1. From the streams page, click Start

The dashboard will show real-time progress of your migration:

• Tables being processed
• Number of records transferred
• Transfer speed
• Estimated completion time

During the transfer, you can:

• View detailed logs to monitor the process
• Pause the transfer if needed (and resume later)
• Monitor system resources on your Droplet

For larger databases, you may want to set up Droplet monitoring in the DigitalOcean dashboard to ensure you have sufficient resources for the migration.

Step 9: Verify Your Data

Once the process completes, it's crucial to verify that your data has been transferred correctly:

1. Connect to your DigitalOcean database using the command line or a GUI tool like TablePlus, DBeaver, or DigitalOcean's built-in console:

PGPASSWORD=<password> psql -h <do-host> -p 25060 -U doadmin defaultdb

2. Run verification queries to check data integrity:

-- List all tables in the database
\dt

-- Get row counts for all tables
SELECT 
    schemaname as schema,
    relname as table_name,
    n_live_tup as row_count
FROM pg_stat_user_tables
ORDER BY n_live_tup DESC;

-- Check table sizes including indexes
SELECT
    table_schema,
    table_name,
    pg_size_pretty(pg_total_relation_size('"' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '"')) as total_size
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'public'
ORDER BY pg_total_relation_size('"' || table_schema || '"."' || table_name || '"') DESC;

3. Compare these results with the same queries run on your Google Cloud SQL instance to ensure all data has been transferred correctly.

4. Optionally run some more verification queries to make sure all data copied successfully. In your case, these queries will be according to your individual needs.

-- List all tables
\dt

-- Get row counts for key tables with sample data
SELECT 'customers' as table_name, COUNT(*) as row_count FROM customer
UNION ALL
SELECT 'films' as table_name, COUNT(*) as row_count FROM film
UNION ALL
SELECT 'rentals' as table_name, COUNT(*) as row_count FROM rental
UNION ALL
SELECT 'payments' as table_name, COUNT(*) as row_count FROM payment;

-- Verify data integrity with sample queries
-- Check total revenue
SELECT SUM(amount) as total_revenue FROM payment;

-- Check top 5 rented films
SELECT f.title, COUNT(*) as rental_count
FROM rental r
JOIN inventory i ON r.inventory_id = i.inventory_id
JOIN film f ON i.film_id = f.film_id
GROUP BY f.title
ORDER BY rental_count DESC
LIMIT 5;

-- Verify customer data
SELECT COUNT(*) as active_customers
FROM customer
WHERE active = 1;

Step 10: Update Your Application

Once you've verified your data, it's time to update your application to use the new DigitalOcean database:

1. Update your application's database connection settings:
   • Host: Your DigitalOcean database hostname
   • Port: 25060
   • Username: doadmin (or your custom user)
   • Password: Your database password
   • Database name: Your database name
   • SSL: Required (usually)
2. If you're using managed app platforms like DigitalOcean App Platform, update your environment variables with the new database connection details.

Why Choose DBConvert Streams for Your DigitalOcean Migration?

• User-friendly interface that doesn't require deep database expertise
• Automated schema conversion between different database types
• Cross-database conversion between PostgreSQL and MySQL
• Real-time monitoring of the migration process
• Flexible migration options including one-time transfers and continuous replication
• Secure credential management with encrypted connections

Conclusion

Migrating from Google Cloud SQL to DigitalOcean doesn't have to be complex or risky. With DBConvert Streams, you can perform the migration efficiently while maintaining data integrity. DigitalOcean's straightforward managed database offerings provide an excellent destination for your data, with predictable pricing and developer-friendly tools.

After completing this migration, you'll benefit from DigitalOcean's simplified database management, clear pricing structure, and performance optimized for developer workloads. Most importantly, you'll spend less time managing your database infrastructure and more time building your application.

Ready to start your migration? Visit https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/dbconvert-streams to deploy the DBConvert Streams 1-Click App and experience the simplest way to move your database to DigitalOcean.