# Create Environments with Masked Production Data Using Neon Branches

DevFeed: [Create Environments with Masked Production Data Using Neon Branches](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/create-environments-with-masked-production-data-using-neon-branches-5248.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://neon.com/blog/environments-masked-production-data>)

Author: Carlota Soto

Published: 2025-05-15T19:18:23Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Blog -- Neon Docs](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/blog-neon-docs.md>)

Topics: [Databases](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/databases.md>), [pii](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/pii.md>), [Security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/security.md>), [Provisioning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/provisioning.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>), [Back end](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/backend.md>)

Tags: [databases](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/databases.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/infrastructure.md>), [pii](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pii.md>), [product](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/product.md>), [provisioning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/provisioning.md>), [qa](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/qa.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains why engineering teams struggle to create realistic development and test environments from production Postgres data. Manual provisioning, dump and restore workflows, personally identifiable information, regulatory and security concerns, unrealistic seed data, and environment drift make production cloning difficult. It presents Neon's work on creating safe, fast, repeatable production-like environments by cloning production data and anonymizing sensitive information.

## Source excerpt

Every engineering team needs realistic, reliable environments to test, debug, and ship software with confidence. The ideal setup sounds simple - clone your production database, run your tests, and move on. But "clone your production database" is easier said than done. Replicating...