PlanetScale vs Turso
A detailed comparison to help you choose between PlanetScale and Turso.
Quick Verdict
4.2/5
PlanetScale
0 reviews
4.1/5
Turso
0 reviews
PlanetScale is rated higher (4.2 vs 4.1). 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. Turso offers SQLite-based databases at the edge for multi-tenant SaaS. Create thousands of database instances, each at a different edge location. Per-tenant isolation at SQLite pricing.
PlanetScale Serverless MySQL with database branching | Turso Edge SQLite — create thousands of DB instances | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ | 4.1 (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 | Multi-tenant SaaS and AI agent workloads needing per-tenant SQLite databases replicated close to users |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 0 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 1 GB | — |
| Storage | 10 GB✓ | 5 GB |
| Bandwidth | 0 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99% | — |
| Data-center count | 19 | 30✓ |
| €/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 tierapi accessopen source |
| Visit PlanetScale → | Visit Turso → | |
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
Turso
Pros
- + True per-tenant database isolation at SQLite pricing — 100 databases free, unlimited from $5.99/mo
- + Published pricing, overage rates, and even per-tier commit latency — rare transparency
- + Edge replication across 30+ locations with placement you control per database
- + Eleven-nines durability via S3-backed commits; MIT-licensed engine you can self-host
- + SQLite file-format and SQL compatibility keeps local dev and production aligned
Cons
- - No public uptime SLA on self-serve plans — the guarantee is durability, not availability
- - Rows-read metering punishes unindexed queries; costs can surprise the careless
- - EU databases still back up to S3 us-east-2 unless you bring your own buckets (Pro+)
- - SQLite dialect limits rule out query-heavy relational workloads
- - Big price jump from Scaler ($29/mo) to Pro ($499/mo) for priority support and compliance
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