Migrating from undb to Teable on a ServOrbit VPS

The problem with undb in 2025–2026

Why migrate now rather than in six months

• Active security risk: unmaintained npm dependencies accumulate known CVEs; an undb instance exposed to the internet without a hardened reverse proxy is an expanding attack surface.
• Unpatched production bugs: regressions in CSV import and formulas reported in late 2025 have no fix; if your usage touches these features, the situation only worsens.
• Frozen dependencies: Node.js LTS advances, Docker base images change; a project without maintenance eventually fails to build, blocking host security updates.
• Community moving on: discussions in self-hosted forums (Reddit r/selfhosted, awesome-selfhosted) show a clear migration trend toward Teable, NocoDB, and Grist; staying on undb means losing access to active integrations and community scripts.
• Orphaned data: the longer you wait, the higher the probability of an undocumented internal schema change; exporting now, while the output format is known and stable, is safer than waiting for a future incompatibility.
• A clean migration window: your data is fresh and consistent now; a forced migration — because the instance fails to start after a Docker update — always happens under worse conditions.

Teable: the actively maintained Rust NoCode database

undb vs Teable: technical comparison

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Preparing the migration: exporting from undb

Exporting your data from undb

1. 01

   Access the export interface

   In undb, open each table you want to migrate. The table context menu (the '…' icon or right-click on the tab) exposes an 'Export' option. undb offers two formats: CSV and JSON. Choose JSON for tables with relation or formula fields — CSV flattens relations into strings, complicating remapping. For simple tables (no relations), CSV is sufficient.

2. 02

   Export table by table

   undb does not offer a global database export at this version. Each table must be exported separately. Organize your files in a folder named after the database: for example export-undb-crm/ or export-undb-projects/. Note the import order for later: tables referenced by others must be imported into Teable first.

3. 03

   Verify export integrity

   For each exported JSON file, verify it is not truncated: open it in an editor or run python3 -m json.tool my-export.json > /dev/null — no output means valid JSON. For CSV files, count lines with wc -l export.csv and compare against the record count displayed in undb. A discrepancy of more than a few lines (headers, trailing blank line) warrants investigation before proceeding.

4. 04

   Keep an archive copy

   Before continuing, archive everything: tar czf undb-export-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz export-undb-*/. Keep this archive for thirty days after the migration. If Teable reveals a data inconsistency two weeks after import, the original undb export is your ground truth.

Installing Teable on a ServOrbit VPS

Install Teable via Docker Compose

1. 05

   Create the working directory

   Connect via SSH to your VPS. Create a dedicated directory and navigate into it:

   mkdir -p /opt/teable && cd /opt/teable

   Download the official Compose file from the Teable repository:

   curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/teableio/teable/main/dockers/docker-compose.yml

2. 06

   Configure environment variables

   Create a .env file in /opt/teable/. The minimum required variables are:

   POSTGRES_PASSWORD=change-me-strong
   TEABLE_SECRET_KEY=a-random-32-character-string
   PUBLIC_ORIGIN=https://teable.your-domain.tld

   Generate the secret key with openssl rand -hex 16. Do not reuse the PostgreSQL password from another instance.

3. 07

   Start the services

   Start the stack in the background:

   docker compose up -d

   Wait thirty seconds, then verify all containers are healthy:

   docker compose ps

   The teable service must show healthy. If teable-db is not ready yet, wait a few more seconds — PostgreSQL takes longer on the first start (schema initialization).

4. 08

   Configure the reverse proxy

   Teable listens on port 3000 by default. Configure your reverse proxy (nginx or Caddy) to route HTTPS traffic to localhost:3000. Minimal nginx example:

   server {
       listen 443 ssl;
       server_name teable.your-domain.tld;
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
           proxy_set_header Host $host;
           proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
       }
   }

   If using the ServOrbit template, this configuration is generated automatically.

5. 09

   First access and admin account creation

   Open https://teable.your-domain.tld in a browser. On first login, Teable prompts you to create an admin account. This account is local to your instance — there is no external registration. Choose a strong password and store it in your secrets manager.

6. 10

   Create a workspace

   After login, create a workspace (equivalent to an organization in Airtable) that will hold your bases migrated from undb. Give it a descriptive name — undb Migration for example — to distinguish imported data from new bases you will create directly in Teable.

Importing your undb data into Teable

Import and verify your data

1. 11

   Create the target base in Teable

   In your workspace, click 'New base' and give it the same name as the original database in undb. This naming consistency makes cross-verification easier during migration. If you are migrating multiple databases, process them one at a time.

2. 12

   Import tables from CSV or JSON

   Inside the target base, click '+ Add table' then 'Import from file'. Select your CSV or JSON export. For CSV, Teable auto-detects column types — verify that date columns are interpreted as Date rather than Text. For JSON, the mapping is more direct if the undb export format is standard.

   Import tables without relations first (the leaf tables in your data graph), then those that reference them.

3. 13

   Map and adjust field types

   After import, review each column in Teable and verify its type. Common issues when migrating from undb:
   - undb formula fields have no direct import equivalent — they arrive as frozen computed values. Recreate formulas in Teable manually.
   - attachment fields do not migrate via CSV; if undb stored files, handle them separately.
   - Boolean fields exported as the string true/false need to be converted to Checkbox type in Teable.

4. 14

   Verify relationships and data integrity

   If your undb tables had relationships (link-type fields), these arrive flattened in the CSV export. Recreate link fields in Teable once all tables are imported, then use the filter view to verify that record counts match the originals. A persistent discrepancy indicates an encoding issue in the export (special characters, Windows line endings) — re-export using JSON in that case.