MySQL HeatWave (Oracle) vs PlanetScale
A detailed comparison to help you choose between MySQL HeatWave (Oracle) and PlanetScale.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
MySQL HeatWave (Oracle)
0 reviews
4.2/5
PlanetScale
0 reviews
PlanetScale is rated higher (4.2 vs 4.0). Oracle MySQL HeatWave runs OLTP MySQL plus in-memory OLAP analytics in the same database engine. Serverless OLAP queries without ETL pipelines. Available on OCI, AWS, and Azure. 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.
MySQL HeatWave (Oracle) In-memory analytics engine for MySQL with real-time query acceleration | PlanetScale Serverless MySQL with database branching | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $5/mo |
| Best for | MySQL shops with real analytical load that want sub-second reporting on live data and want to retire a separate warehouse and its ETL pipeline. | 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 tiermanaged optioneu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter | free tiermanaged optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi access |
| Visit MySQL HeatWave (Oracle) → | Visit PlanetScale → | |
MySQL HeatWave (Oracle)
Pros
- + Genuinely useful Always Free tier: HeatWave DB system with single-node cluster, 50 GB storage, 50 GB backup, unlimited time
- + Real-time analytics on live transactional data without ETL duplication into a warehouse
- + Wire-compatible MySQL — existing apps, drivers, and BI tools work unchanged
- + Native deployment on OCI and AWS (eight regions) plus Azure via interconnect
- + Fully managed with automatic backups, patching, failover options up to 99.99% availability
Cons
- - Layered, partly consumption-derived pricing (ECPU meter, cluster memory-hour allocation) that is hard to model upfront
- - Full stack with HeatWave cluster plus ML/GenAI can cost 3x to 5x the base database bill
- - Full feature set is OCI-first; AWS/Azure deployments lack some features
- - No bare metal, GPU, or object storage product of its own — enterprise add-ons are separate meters
- - Oracle contracting and rate changes warrant written rate commitments at order time
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
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