Upgrade a standalone server (TAR/ZIP)

This example shows how to upgrade or patch a standalone server from a TAR/ZIP.

It is recommended to read the following pages before continuing:

For critical systems, it is recommended to:

Backup your server(s), including databases, configurations, licenses, encryption keys, and custom plugins to avoid losing data in case of failure. For details, see the Operations Manual Backup and Restore or Docker → Dump and load a Neo4j database (offline) .
Perform the upgrade in a test environment.

Prerequisites

The following example assumes that the Neo4j 5.26 LTS or 2025.x TAR/ZIP is extracted to <NEO4J_HOME> and the Neo4j binaries are in their default location. The conf, data, certificates, licenses, and plugins (if you use custom plugins) directories are configured using the server.directories.* configuration settings and the environment variable NEO4J_CONF as per the Installation instructions in the Operations Manual. This means you can replace the DBMS binaries without affecting the configuration and state.

You must be careful to not overwrite your conf, data, certificates, licenses, and plugins (if you use custom plugins) directories when you install the new version. If you are using the default directories (under <NEO4J_HOME>), make sure you back up your databases using neo4j-admin database dump command and store the contents of all these directories in a safe place before upgrading. See Operations Manual → Back up an offline database and Operations Manual → Default file locations for more information.

Upgrade steps

Stop Neo4j 5.26 or 2025.x.
```
/neo4j-enterprise-5.26/bin/neo4j stop
```
From Neo4j Deployment Center, download the latest version, 2025.y TAR or ZIP, and unpack it.

If you have installed any default plugins, check if they are compatible with the new version and update them if necessary by copying the new version of the plugins to the plugins directory.

In Enterpise Edition, the latest APOC is available under labs, whilst GDS, Bloom, GenAI, and NOM are available under products. Currently, an incompatible GDS or APOC version prevents Neo4j from starting up.

If your old installation uses the default directories (not the ones this example assumes in the Prerequisites section), then, you must migrate the configuration files from the old version to the new version using the neo4j-admin server migrate-configuration command, copy the certificates and the custom plugin files to the new installation, and load the database dumps using the neo4j-admin database load command before starting the new version.

Start Neo4j 2025.y:

/neo4j-enterprise-2025.y/bin/neo4j start

Monitor the logs

The neo4j.log file contains information on how many steps the upgrade will involve and how far it has progressed. It is advisable to monitor this log.