Neon vs PlanetScale: pricing, quotas & features (2025)
Serverless Postgres with branching and bottomless storage
vs. Serverless MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres at scale
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026
Summary
Neon and PlanetScale are both dbaas platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. PlanetScale offers paid plans from $5/month; Neon does not publish standard pricing. Neon has a broader documented feature set (14 vs 12 features). The right choice depends on your existing stack, team experience, and feature requirements. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Neon and PlanetScale's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
Neon vs PlanetScale: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2025)
En esta comparativa analizamos Neon y PlanetScale lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.
Neon es una plataforma de la categoría dbaas — Serverless Postgres with branching and bottomless storage. Ofrece 4 tiers de precio: Free gratuito, Launch gratuito, Scale gratuito, Business gratuito. Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 14 características y 7 interfazes para desarrolladores.
PlanetScale pertenece a la categoría dbaas — Serverless MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres at scale. Ofrece 6 tiers de precio: Postgres EBS single-node — PS-5 desde $5/mes, Postgres EBS HA — PS-5 desde $15/mes, Vitess (non-Metal) — PS-10 desde $39/mes, Postgres Metal — M-10 desde $50/mes. Su catálogo documenta 12 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.
A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.
¿Necesitas estos datos en tu agente de IA (Claude Code, Cursor, Zed)? Instala gratis el servidor MCP de Staxly y tendrás acceso estructurado a Neon, PlanetScale y más de 130 plataformas para desarrolladores.
Pricing tiers
Neon
PlanetScale
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Neon vs pg-ebs-nonha-starter on PlanetScale.
| Metric | Neon | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| branches per project | 10 branches | — |
| cu hours per project | 100 CU-hours/month | — |
| egress gb month | 5 GB/month | — |
| ha | — | 0 nodes |
| pitr retention hours | 6 hours | — |
| projects | 100 projects | — |
| ram mib | — | 512 MiB |
| 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…
- SQL over HTTP — Serverless driver lets you query Postgres over HTTPS — works in edge runtimes (V…
- 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.
PlanetScale · 12 features
- Backups — Automated daily backups with retention.
- Database Branching — Git-like branches of your DB schema (not data). Create, diff, merge via deploy r…
- Deploy Requests — Schema changes in a feature branch get reviewed + auto-applied to main with zero…
- HIPAA — HIPAA-compliant deployments (Enterprise).
- Metal (NVMe) — Dedicated NVMe local storage. 10x IOPS vs EBS, latency-critical workloads.
- PgBouncer Pooler — Managed PgBouncer for Postgres clusters. Optional dedicated pooler.
- PlanetScale Boost — Query result cache with sub-ms reads.
- Point-in-Time Recovery — Restore cluster to any point within retention window.
- Postgres on PlanetScale — PostgreSQL 15+ with the same branching + deploy-request flow. Launched 2024.
- Query Insights — Per-query performance analytics, slow query tracking, explain plans.
- Read-only Regions — Route reads to the nearest region for lower latency.
- Vitess (MySQL at scale) — Horizontally-sharded MySQL (YouTube-scale) — original PlanetScale offering.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Neon | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Neon CLI | PlanetScale CLI (pscale) |
| SDK | @neondatabase/serverless | @planetscale/database |
| REST | Management / Control Plane API, Neon Data API (REST), SQL over HTTP | Management API |
| MCP | Neon MCP Server | PlanetScale MCP |
| OTHER | Postgres Wire Protocol | MySQL Wire Protocol, Postgres Wire Protocol |
Key takeaways
- Both Neon and PlanetScale offer a free tier — Neon ("Free") and PlanetScale ("Enterprise") — with no credit card required to start.
- PlanetScale's entry paid tier (Postgres EBS single-node — PS-5) costs $5/month; Neon does not list public pricing.
- Neon has a broader documented feature set (14 features) vs. PlanetScale (12 features) in Staxly's catalog.
Want this comparison in your AI agent's context? Install the free Staxly MCP server.