Neon vs Anthropic API
Serverless Postgres with branching and bottomless storage
vs. API for Claude — frontier models for chat, tool use, agents, and long-context reasoning
Pricing tiers
Neon
Free
100 projects, 0.5 GB storage + 100 CU-hours each. Great for prototypes and preview envs.
Free
Launch
Usage-based, no minimum. Small production workloads. $0.35/GB-month storage, $0.106/CU-hour.
$0 base (usage-based)
Scale
Usage-based, higher compute tier + faster instances ($0.222/CU-hour). Up to 30-day PITR, 1,000 projects.
$0 base (usage-based)
Business
Usage-based with 99.95% SLA, HIPAA available. Private networking $0.01/GB.
$0 base (usage-based)
Anthropic API
Opus 4.7 — usage
Input $5 / output $25 / cache-write $6.25 / cache-read $0.50 per 1M tokens. Batch = 50% off.
Custom
Sonnet 4.6 — usage
Input $3 / output $15 / cache-write $3.75 / cache-read $0.30 per 1M tokens. Batch = 50% off.
Custom
Haiku 4.5 — usage
Input $1 / output $5 / cache-write $1.25 / cache-read $0.10 per 1M tokens. Batch = 50% off.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Neon vs opus-4-7 on Anthropic API.
| Metric | Neon | Anthropic API |
|---|---|---|
| branches per project | 10 branches | — |
| cu hours per project | 100 CU-hours/month | — |
| discount batch | — | 50 % off |
| egress gb month | 5 GB/month | — |
| pitr retention hours | 6 hours | — |
| projects | 100 projects | — |
| storage gb per project | 0.5 GB | — |
| team members | 3 users | — |
Features
Neon · 14 features
- Autoscaling — Compute scales CPU + memory between min and max CU in seconds based on load.
- Branching — Git-like DB branches: copy-on-write snapshots of data + schema. Instant, cheap. …
- Data API (REST) — PostgREST-compatible REST endpoint auto-generated from your schema. Uses Postgre…
- IP Allowlist — Restrict DB access to specific CIDRs. Launch+.
- Launchpad — One-click create-a-database link that can be embedded in OSS repos (DATABASE_URL…
- Logical Replication — Publish changes to Snowflake, BigQuery, Kafka, or other Postgres. Subscribe from…
- Monitoring — Built-in dashboards for CPU/RAM/connections/slow queries. Prometheus export on B…
- Neon Auth — Stack Auth integrated: users table auto-synced into your Postgres (public.users_…
- Point-in-Time Restore — Restore DB to any moment in the retention window (6h free → 30d Scale) via branc…
- Private Networking — AWS PrivateLink / VPC peering. Business plan.
- Read Replicas — Create a read-only compute endpoint on the same branch. Zero replication lag (re…
- Scale to Zero — Compute suspends when idle — no charge for compute while paused. Cold-start ~300…
- Schema Diff — Compare schema between branches — build PR checks and preview migrations safely.
- SQL over HTTP — Serverless driver lets you query Postgres over HTTPS — works in edge runtimes (V…
Anthropic API · 0 features
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Neon | Anthropic API |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Neon CLI | Claude Code CLI |
| SDK | @neondatabase/serverless | Go SDK, Java SDK, Python SDK, Ruby SDK, TypeScript SDK (@anthropic-ai/sdk) |
| REST | Management / Control Plane API, Neon Data API (REST), SQL over HTTP | AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex AI, Microsoft Azure AI, REST API (Messages + Agents) |
| MCP | Neon MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Postgres Wire Protocol | — |
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