Neon vs PlanetScale — free-tier comparison
This comparison is calculated from verified service fields. It is not presented as an editorial review and remains excluded from the index until reviewed.
At a glance
Neon: Most generous free tier
Database
100 projects, 100 CU-hours/month per project, 0.5GB storage/project
Paid from Usage-based ($0.106/CU-hour + $0.35/GB-month)
- 100 projects
- 100 CU-hours/month per project
- 0.5GB storage per project
- Real serverless Postgres with scale-to-zero compute
- Instant copy-on-write database branching
- 0.5GB storage on the free plan
Best for
- Serverless and edge apps that need Postgres
- Preview and test databases branched per pull request
Database
Free Hobby plan discontinued; current plans start with paid development databases
Paid from $5/month
- Free Hobby plan discontinued
- Paid development databases start around $5/month
- Vitess and Postgres products available
- Serverless MySQL that scales on Vitess
- Git-like database branching with non-blocking schema changes
- The free Hobby tier was discontinued in April 2024
Best for
- Teams that need MySQL at scale
- Schema changes without downtime
The catch?
Neon
- Scales to zero when idle
- Some constraints remain unconfirmed
PlanetScale
- Free tier discontinued
- Credit card required
- Overage auto-bills
- Some constraints remain unconfirmed
Detailed comparison
| Neon | PlanetScale | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier & pricing | ||
| Free tier ↑ better | Perpetual ★ | Discontinued |
| Paid from ↓ better | Usage-based | $5/mo |
| Regions ↑ better | Multi-region | — |
| Database | ||
| Storage ↑ better | 0.5 GB | — |
| Branches ↑ better | Included | — |
FAQ
Neon separates storage and compute; compute scales to zero when idle and wakes on demand, so you pay for compute only while queries run.
It is an instant copy-on-write copy of your database — ideal for per-pull-request preview environments, testing migrations, or isolated development.
No. PlanetScale discontinued its free Hobby plan in April 2024; current public pricing starts with paid development databases.
It lets you branch your schema like Git, make non-blocking changes on a dev branch, and merge them to production via a deploy request — without locking tables.