Neon vs PlanetScale
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Neon and PlanetScale.
Neon Serverless Postgres with branching and scale-to-zero | PlanetScale Serverless MySQL with database branching | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.6 (305 reviews)✓ | 4.4 (357 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | Developers using Next.js or serverless frameworks who want Postgres with branching at zero idle cost | Teams running MySQL at scale who need schema migrations without downtime |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 0 vCPU | 0 vCPU |
| RAM | 0 GB | 0 GB |
| Storage | 0 GB | 0 GB |
| Bandwidth | 0 TB/mo | 0 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | 99.9% | 99.99%✓ |
| Data-center count | 8✓ | 6 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ✓ | |
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | United StatesEuropean Union | United StatesEuropean Union |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tiermanaged optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi accessopen source | free tiermanaged optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi access |
| Visit Neon → | Visit PlanetScale → | |
Neon
Pros
- + Scale-to-zero — no charges for idle databases
- + Database branching for preview environments
- + Generous free tier — 10 projects
Cons
- - Cold start latency when scaled to zero
- - Less mature than managed RDS for mission-critical
PlanetScale
Pros
- + Non-blocking schema changes — no downtime migrations
- + Database branching like git
- + Auto-scales to handle traffic spikes
Cons
- - No foreign keys (Vitess architecture limitation)
- - Read replicas only on higher plans
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