PlanetScale vs Google Cloud (GCP)
A detailed comparison to help you choose between PlanetScale and Google Cloud (GCP).
Quick Verdict
4.2/5
PlanetScale
0 reviews
3.9/5
Google Cloud (GCP)
0 reviews
PlanetScale is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.9). 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. Known for its data analytics and AI tooling (BigQuery, Vertex AI).
PlanetScale Serverless MySQL with database branching | Google Cloud (GCP) Google's cloud — AI/ML and data analytics focus | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.9 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | pay-as-you-go |
| Starting price | From $5/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Teams running MySQL (or Postgres) at scale who want Vitess-grade sharding and safe, reviewable schema migrations without operating the infrastructure themselves | Data- and ML-centric teams already building on BigQuery, GKE, or Vertex AI, and workloads that need a published multi-zone SLA or data residency in one of 43 regions. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 0 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 1 GB | — |
| Storage | 10 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | 0 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99%✓ | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | 19 | 43✓ |
| €/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 optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi access | free tierhourly billingipv6gpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi accessterraform providerkubernetes supportarm processors |
| Visit PlanetScale → | Visit Google Cloud (GCP) → | |
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
Google Cloud (GCP)
Pros
- + Best published SLA set in the comparison: 99.99% multi-zone, 99.9% single-instance
- + 43 regions and 130 zones with per-region price variance you can trade against latency
- + Per-second billing and three discount levers — Spot up to 91% off, commitments up to 55–70%
- + Live migration through host maintenance; deep integration with GKE, BigQuery, Vertex AI
- + Real free entry: $300 trial credit that never auto-charges, plus an Always Free e2-micro VM
Cons
- - Poor price-performance for plain VMs versus European VPS specialists; no bundled transfer
- - Egress is expensive ($0.12/GiB Premium) and billed as a separate line item
- - Sustained use discounts don't apply to E2 and N4 — the families entry buyers choose
- - Budgets alert but don't cap Compute Engine spend; human support costs from $29/month
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