Directus vs PlanetScale
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Directus and PlanetScale.
Quick Verdict
3.6/5
Directus
0 reviews
4.2/5
PlanetScale
0 reviews
PlanetScale is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.6). Directus wraps any SQL database with a no-code data studio, REST and GraphQL API, and file management. Open source and self-hostable. Directus Cloud is managed hosting. Managed Postgres and MySQL (Vitess) databases with branching and zero-downtime schema changes. No free tier; Postgres starts at $5/month, Vitess at $39/month.
Directus Open-source headless CMS and database API | PlanetScale Serverless MySQL with database branching | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.6 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $5/mo |
| Best for | Development teams with existing SQL databases who want an admin UI and API layer without building one, and small organizations that qualify for free self-hosting with full data control. | Teams running MySQL (or Postgres) at scale who want Vitess-grade sharding and safe, reviewable schema migrations without operating the infrastructure themselves |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 0 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.99% |
| Data-center count | — | 19 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €5.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | 12 AWS + 7 GCP regions incl. US, EU, APAC (Tokyo, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Seoul) and South America (Sao Paulo) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tieropen sourceself hostableapi access | free tiermanaged optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi access |
| Visit Directus → | Visit PlanetScale → | |
Directus
Pros
- + Wraps any existing SQL database — no proprietary data store, no forced migration, full data ownership
- + Auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs with granular RBAC, audit logging, webhooks, and built-in Flows automation
- + Free self-hosting under Core / Open Innovation Grant for small organizations; every release converts to GPL-3.0 after four years
- + Directus Cloud is genuinely managed: provisioning in about 90 seconds, automatic updates, scaling, and backups
- + The Studio admin UI gives non-technical editors a real interface over a relational model
- + Honest communication about licensing — the team states plainly that it is not OSI-certified open source
Cons
- - No longer OSI open source: MSCL/BSL custom licenses with a $5M total-finances commercial trigger
- - Directus Cloud is costly versus raw resources: $99/month buys 5 seats, 75,000 entries, 250,000 API requests
- - API request and entry caps on paid plans punish high-volume production workloads
- - Complex permission hierarchies and Flows have a real learning curve; self-hosted production is DevOps work
- - No published uptime SLA outside Enterprise agreements
- - Ecosystem and community smaller than Strapi's; licensing changes have churned community trust
PlanetScale
Pros
- + Built by the Vitess maintainers — branching, deploy requests and online schema migrations are first-class
- + Three engines (Postgres, Vitess, sharded Neki) plus Metal local-NVMe tiers for I/O-heavy workloads
- + Unusually transparent pricing: published SKU tables and a SQL-queryable per-region pricing endpoint
- + Three-zone HA with automatic failover and a 99.99% SLA on HA configurations
- + 19 AWS/GCP regions plus a bring-your-own-cloud Managed option for data-residency needs
Cons
- - No free tier or trial — the Hobby plan was retired in April 2024
- - Metered extras (storage, egress, backups, branch hours) make the real bill higher than sticker prices
- - Vitess constraints: no foreign keys in the classic model and a real sharding learning curve
- - Single-node $5 entry is not highly available; production HA starts at $15/month before usage
Stay in the loop
Get weekly updates on the best new hosting and infrastructure providers, deals, and comparisons.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.