Upgrading from SonarQube Community Build to SonarQube Server

You can use different options to upgrade your SonarQube Community Build to SonarQube Server depending on your situation.

Option 1: Upgrade your existing database

Use this option if:

• You use an external database for your SonarQube data (not the embedded one).
• You regularly analyzed a substantial amount of code.
• Developers interacted with the results, including resolving and/or accepting issues, and maintaining this history is important for you.

Proceed as follows:

1. Determine the upgrade path as follows:
   Ensure that the target SonarQube Server version was released after your SonarQube Community Build version.
   In most cases, migrating to the latest version of the target product will suffice. However, if you are using the latest version of SonarQube Community Build, you may need to wait for the next version of SonarQube Server, typically available within a month.
2. Test the upgrade.
3. Back up the SonarQube Community Build database and ensure it complies with the database requirements of the target SonarQube Server version. If you want to migrate to another database vendor, see Migrating to another vendor.
4. Perform the upgrade.
5. Perform the post-upgrade steps.

Option 2: Start over with a fresh installation

Use this option if:

• Your SonarQube Community Build instance is far behind the current version so that the length and complexity of the upgrade path may outweigh the benefits of data preservation for you.
• Your SonarQube Community Build instance was sporadically used, managed inconsistently, or isn't known to represent the projects you plan to analyze and maintain actively.
• You made extensive use of 3rd party plugins that may conflict with Sonar commercial features.
• You created multiple "projects" representing branches of the same individual code repositories and have a messy Project overview as a result. The cleanup may be more burdensome than a fresh start.

Proceed as follows:

1. Install SonarQube Server. 
2. Re-provision your projects through the SonarQube UI or web API, or else give the user account that will be running analysis permission to Create Projects.
3. For existing CI/CD pipelines involving Sonar analysis, revisit the URL and token used to connect to Sonar and update with values appropriate to your new SonarQube Server instance.
4. You may (of course) keep your old SonarQube Community Build instance online during a transitional period until you're confident all needed project workflows have been migrated to your new SonarQube Server instance

Option 3: Move your project data to the new instance

Use this option if:

• You'd like to preserve project analysis and issue history.
• You'd rather revisit all the administrative details, or you built up valuable history while using the embedded non-upgradeable product database.
• Your administrators are able to dedicate time and effort to a data migration project.
• You're migrating to Enterprise or Data Center Edition.

Proceed as follows:

1. Install your SonarQube Server's Enterprise or Data Center Edition as explained above in Option 2: Start over with a fresh installation. 
2. Move the projects from your old SonarQube Community Build instance to your new SonarQube Server instance. 

Related pages

• Moving a project from SonarQube Community Build to a SonarQube Server Edition instance
• Other migration-related procedures
• Downgrading from SonarQube Server to SonarQube Community Build