NeonvsPlanetScale
Score Comparison
Signals Comparison
Neon
- Multiple outages in 2025-2026 raise reliability concerns(9/10)
- Regional availability gaps(5/10)
PlanetScale
- Connection issues with Next.js and Prisma(7/10)
- October 2025 AWS us-east-1 outage affected dashboard(5/10)
Neon
- Databricks acquisition creates uncertainty(8/10)
- Limited control over storage internals(6/10)
PlanetScale
No signals
Neon
- Cold starts affect user experience(7/10)
- Serverless driver slower than direct Postgres(6/10)
PlanetScale
No signals
Neon
- Free tier cannot run 24/7 continuously(6/10)
- Branch and PITR storage costs add up(5/10)
PlanetScale
- Free Hobby tier removed - $39/month minimum now(10/10)
- Row-read billing causes surprise costs(8/10)
- Much more expensive than alternatives(8/10)
Neon
- Database-only service requires additional tools(5/10)
- Free tier limited to one database per project(4/10)
PlanetScale
- Branching workflow has steep learning curve(6/10)
- No GUI or DBMS - just SQL console(5/10)
- Index optimization required to avoid high row reads(6/10)
Neon
No signals
PlanetScale
- No foreign key support due to Vitess architecture(7/10)
- Firebase and social login integration issues(6/10)
- MySQL-only limits use cases (Postgres preference growing)(5/10)
Neon
No signals
PlanetScale
- Limited documentation and support for edge cases(5/10)
Pricing Comparison
Neon
Users: N/A
Storage: 0.5GB
Limits: Scale-to-zero only (cold starts), 100 CU-hours not enough for always-on
Users: N/A
Storage: 10GB included
Limits: No SLA, email support only, limited to personal/small projects
Users: N/A
Storage: 50GB included
Limits: Still usage-based, costs can spike with high traffic
Users: N/A
Storage: Custom
Limits: Requires sales engagement, unclear pricing until negotiation
PlanetScale
Users: Unlimited
Storage: Included in base
Limits: Not recommended for production, No high availability, Single region only
Users: Unlimited
Storage: 10 GB included
Limits: 5 development branches max, Enterprise features locked, No dedicated support
Users: Unlimited
Storage: 25 GB included
Limits: 5 development branches max, Enterprise features locked
Users: Unlimited
Storage: Custom
Limits: Must negotiate with sales, Long procurement process
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Neon | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| Database | ||
| PostgreSQL Database Full compatibility | ||
| Foreign Key Constraints Limited support, not in sharded mode | ||
| PostgreSQL Support Added late 2024, less mature than MySQL | ||
| Development | ||
| Database Branching Instant COW clones | ||
| Core | ||
| Zero-Downtime Migrations Non-blocking schema changes via Online DDL | ||
| Deploy Requests Safe schema migration workflow | ||
| Scaling | ||
| Scale-to-Zero Pay only when active | ||
| Horizontal Sharding Via Vitess, automatic data distribution | ||
| Autoscaling 0.25-8 CU range | ||
| Read Replicas $39/month each additional | ||
| Multi-Region Deployment Read-only regions for latency | ||
| Reliability | ||
| Point-in-Time Recovery Instant restore | ||
| Automatic Backups Point-in-time recovery available | ||
| Monitoring | ||
| Query Insights Query analysis and index recommendations | ||
| Connectivity | ||
| Serverless Driver WebSocket based | ||
| Performance | ||
| Connection Pooling Built-in for serverless environments | ||
| Backend | ||
| Authentication Database only | ||
| File Storage Database only | ||
| Deployment | ||
| On-Premises/BYOC Cloud only | ||
| Pricing | ||
| Free Tier Removed March 2024 | ||
| Always-On Free Tier 100 CU-hours limit | ||
| Usability | ||
| GUI/Visual Editor SQL console only, no rich GUI | ||
| Developer | ||
| CLI Tool (pscale) Full-featured command line interface | ||
| Security | ||
| SSO/SAML Enterprise plan only | ||
| Audit Logs Enterprise plan only | ||