PlanetScale vs Tencent Cloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between PlanetScale and Tencent Cloud.
Quick Verdict
4.2/5
PlanetScale
0 reviews
3.6/5
Tencent Cloud
0 reviews
PlanetScale is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.6). 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. Tencent Cloud is the cloud division of Tencent Holdings, the third-largest provider in China (15% share, Canalys Q3 2024) with about 2% of the global cloud market. Strong WeChat and gaming ecosystem integration; 22 regions with mainland China coverage.
PlanetScale Serverless MySQL with database branching | Tencent Cloud China's second-largest cloud by Tencent | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.6 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | freemium |
| 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 | Businesses with China or Asia-Pacific users, game studios, media delivery into mainland China, and teams building on the WeChat/mini-program ecosystem |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 0 vCPU | 1 vCPU✓ |
| RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| Storage | 10 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | 0 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99%✓ | 99.975% |
| Data-center count | 19 | 22✓ |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €0.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €5.00 | €0.00✓ |
| 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) | 22 regions / 64 AZs incl. mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok, Mumbai, Silicon Valley, Virginia, Frankfurt, Moscow |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tiermanaged optionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapi access | free tierhourly billinggpu availableapac datacenterus datacenterapi access |
| Visit PlanetScale → | Visit Tencent Cloud → | |
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
Tencent Cloud
Pros
- + 22 regions and 64 AZs with mainland China coverage that Western clouds cannot offer
- + Published per-hour CVM price lists by region and per-second pay-as-you-go billing
- + Published 99.975% single-instance SLA with 10-400 Gbps baseline DDoS protection included
- + Trial-based Free Tier across 30+ products (CVM 2C4G free for 3 months) plus aggressive new-user pricing
- + Native WeChat, mini-program and gaming ecosystem integration
Cons
- - Mainland China compliance (ICP registration, data law) is heavy friction for Western buyers
- - Documentation and console experience are inconsistent, with machine-translated pages
- - Sales-and-ticket support model; community ecosystem is thin outside Asia
- - Promotional pricing is the headline — steady-state costs on modern instance families are closer to hyperscaler rates
- - Price list is reference-only; actual order pricing governs
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