PlanetScalevsNeon

Developer Tool

Saas68

Score Comparison

Overall

Pricing

Usability

Performance

Support

Reliability

Onboarding

Security

Integrations

PlanetScaleNeon

Signals Comparison

Pricing

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

Free tier cannot run 24/7 continuously(6/10)
Branch and PITR storage costs add up(5/10)

Integrations

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

Usability

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

Database-only service requires additional tools(5/10)
Free tier limited to one database per project(4/10)

Reliability

PlanetScale

Connection issues with Next.js and Prisma(7/10)
October 2025 AWS us-east-1 outage affected dashboard(5/10)

Neon

Multiple outages in 2025-2026 raise reliability concerns(9/10)
Regional availability gaps(5/10)

Support

PlanetScale

Limited documentation and support for edge cases(5/10)

Neon

No signals

Customization

PlanetScale

No signals

Neon

Databricks acquisition creates uncertainty(8/10)
Limited control over storage internals(6/10)

Performance

PlanetScale

No signals

Neon

Cold starts affect user experience(7/10)
Serverless driver slower than direct Postgres(6/10)

Pricing Comparison

PlanetScale

Postgres PS-5

$5/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: Included in base

Limits: Not recommended for production, No high availability, Single region only

Non-HA (no failover), Development/testing only recommended, Compute charged separately

Scaler Pro (PS-10)

Popular

$39/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: 10 GB included

Limits: 5 development branches max, Enterprise features locked, No dedicated support

Storage overage $1.50/GB, Read replicas $39/month each, Higher compute tiers significantly more expensive

Scaler Pro (PS-20)

$99/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: 25 GB included

Limits: 5 development branches max, Enterprise features locked

Read replicas additional, Storage overages apply, Still no dedicated support

Enterprise

Free

Users: Unlimited

Storage: Custom

Limits: Must negotiate with sales, Long procurement process

Contact sales required, Minimum annual commitment expected, Pricing not transparent

Neon

Free

Users: N/A

Storage: 0.5GB

Limits: Scale-to-zero only (cold starts), 100 CU-hours not enough for always-on

Cannot run 24/7, limited to one database per project, no pooler customization

Launch

Popular

$0/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: 10GB included

Limits: No SLA, email support only, limited to personal/small projects

Compute: $0.16/CU-hour after included. Storage: $0.35/GB-month. PITR history: $0.20/GB-month

Scale

$0/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: 50GB included

Limits: Still usage-based, costs can spike with high traffic

Same usage rates as Launch after included amounts

Enterprise

$0/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: Custom

Limits: Requires sales engagement, unclear pricing until negotiation

Pricing negotiated per customer

Feature Comparison

Feature	PlanetScale	Neon
Core
Database Branching Git-like branching for schema changes
Zero-Downtime Migrations Non-blocking schema changes via Online DDL
Deploy Requests Safe schema migration workflow
Database
PostgreSQL Database Full compatibility
Foreign Key Constraints Limited support, not in sharded mode
PostgreSQL Support Added late 2024, less mature than MySQL
Scaling
Horizontal Sharding Via Vitess, automatic data distribution
Scale-to-Zero Pay only when active
Read Replicas $39/month each additional
Autoscaling 0.25-8 CU range
Multi-Region Deployment Read-only regions for latency
Monitoring
Query Insights Query analysis and index recommendations
Reliability
Point-in-Time Recovery Instant restore
Automatic Backups Point-in-time recovery available
Performance
Connection Pooling Built-in for serverless environments
Connectivity
Serverless Driver WebSocket based
Backend
Authentication Database only
File Storage Database only
Pricing
Free Tier Removed March 2024
Always-On Free Tier 100 CU-hours limit
Deployment
On-Premises/BYOC Cloud only
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

Signals Comparison

Pricing

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

Free tier cannot run 24/7 continuously(6/10)
Branch and PITR storage costs add up(5/10)

Integrations

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

Usability

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

Database-only service requires additional tools(5/10)
Free tier limited to one database per project(4/10)

Reliability

PlanetScale

Connection issues with Next.js and Prisma(7/10)
October 2025 AWS us-east-1 outage affected dashboard(5/10)

Neon

Multiple outages in 2025-2026 raise reliability concerns(9/10)
Regional availability gaps(5/10)

Support

PlanetScale

Limited documentation and support for edge cases(5/10)

Neon

No signals

Customization

PlanetScale

No signals

Neon

Databricks acquisition creates uncertainty(8/10)
Limited control over storage internals(6/10)

Performance

PlanetScale

No signals

Neon

Cold starts affect user experience(7/10)
Serverless driver slower than direct Postgres(6/10)

Pricing Comparison

PlanetScale

Postgres PS-5

$5/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: Included in base

Limits: Not recommended for production, No high availability, Single region only

Non-HA (no failover), Development/testing only recommended, Compute charged separately

Scaler Pro (PS-10)

Popular

$39/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: 10 GB included

Limits: 5 development branches max, Enterprise features locked, No dedicated support

Storage overage $1.50/GB, Read replicas $39/month each, Higher compute tiers significantly more expensive

Scaler Pro (PS-20)

$99/mo

Users: Unlimited

Storage: 25 GB included

Limits: 5 development branches max, Enterprise features locked

Read replicas additional, Storage overages apply, Still no dedicated support

Enterprise

Free

Users: Unlimited

Storage: Custom

Limits: Must negotiate with sales, Long procurement process

Contact sales required, Minimum annual commitment expected, Pricing not transparent

Neon

Free

Users: N/A

Storage: 0.5GB

Limits: Scale-to-zero only (cold starts), 100 CU-hours not enough for always-on

Cannot run 24/7, limited to one database per project, no pooler customization

Launch

Popular

$0/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: 10GB included

Limits: No SLA, email support only, limited to personal/small projects

Compute: $0.16/CU-hour after included. Storage: $0.35/GB-month. PITR history: $0.20/GB-month

Scale

$0/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: 50GB included

Limits: Still usage-based, costs can spike with high traffic

Same usage rates as Launch after included amounts

Enterprise

$0/mo

Users: N/A

Storage: Custom

Limits: Requires sales engagement, unclear pricing until negotiation

Pricing negotiated per customer

Feature Comparison

Feature	PlanetScale	Neon
Core
Database Branching Git-like branching for schema changes
Zero-Downtime Migrations Non-blocking schema changes via Online DDL
Deploy Requests Safe schema migration workflow
Database
PostgreSQL Database Full compatibility
Foreign Key Constraints Limited support, not in sharded mode
PostgreSQL Support Added late 2024, less mature than MySQL
Scaling
Horizontal Sharding Via Vitess, automatic data distribution
Scale-to-Zero Pay only when active
Read Replicas $39/month each additional
Autoscaling 0.25-8 CU range
Multi-Region Deployment Read-only regions for latency
Monitoring
Query Insights Query analysis and index recommendations
Reliability
Point-in-Time Recovery Instant restore
Automatic Backups Point-in-time recovery available
Performance
Connection Pooling Built-in for serverless environments
Connectivity
Serverless Driver WebSocket based
Backend
Authentication Database only
File Storage Database only
Pricing
Free Tier Removed March 2024
Always-On Free Tier 100 CU-hours limit
Deployment
On-Premises/BYOC Cloud only
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