Neon vs Pusher
Serverless Postgres with branching and bottomless storage
vs. Realtime pub/sub WebSocket Channels + programmatic push (Beams)
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)
Pusher
Beams: Sandbox
Free. 1K subscribers.
$0 base (usage-based)
Channels: Sandbox
Free. 100 concurrent conns, 200K msg/day.
$0 base (usage-based)
Beams: Startup
$29/mo. 10K subscribers.
$29/mo
Channels: Startup
$49/mo. 500 concurrent conns, 1M msg/day.
$49/mo
Channels: Pro
$99/mo. 2K concurrent conns, 4M msg/day.
$99/mo
Beams: Pro
$99/mo. 50K subscribers.
$99/mo
Beams: Business
$199/mo. 115K subscribers.
$199/mo
Channels: Business
$299/mo. 5K concurrent, 10M msg/day.
$299/mo
Beams: Premium
$399/mo. 250K subscribers.
$399/mo
Channels: Premium
$499/mo. 10K concurrent, 20M msg/day.
$499/mo
Channels: Growth
$699/mo. 15K concurrent, 40M msg/day.
$699/mo
Channels: Plus
$899/mo. 20K concurrent, 60M msg/day.
$899/mo
Channels: Growth Plus
$1,199/mo. 30K concurrent, 90M msg/day.
$1199/mo
Channels: Enterprise
Custom. 10M+ concurrent, 100B+ msg/day. SLA, dedicated support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Neon vs be-sandbox on Pusher.
| Metric | Neon | Pusher |
|---|---|---|
| branches per project | 10 branches | — |
| cu hours per project | 100 CU-hours/month | — |
| egress gb month | 5 GB/month | — |
| pitr retention hours | 6 hours | — |
| projects | 100 projects | — |
| storage gb per project | 0.5 GB | — |
| subscribers | — | 1000 subscribers |
| 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…
Pusher · 11 features
- Beams — Push notifications for iOS/Android/Web with device interest groups.
- Beams Authenticated Users — Target users by auth user ID across devices.
- Channels — WebSocket pub/sub — realtime events, live updates, notifications.
- Channels Webhooks — Receive server-side notifications of channel activity.
- Client Events — Publish events from clients directly (triggered from browser).
- Debug Console — Live channel debugging dashboard.
- Encrypted Channels — End-to-end encrypted messages.
- Global Clusters — US, EU, AP-Southeast, etc. Pick nearest region.
- Presence Channels — Track who is online in a channel.
- Private Channels — Auth-required channels with server-signed tokens.
- Stats — Connection / message dashboards.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Neon | Pusher |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Neon CLI | — |
| SDK | @neondatabase/serverless | Pusher Beams Android, Pusher Beams iOS, Pusher Beams Web SDK, pusher-http-go, pusher-http-java, pusher-http-php, pusher-js (client), pusher (Node), pusher (Python), pusher (Ruby), PusherSwift, pusher-websocket-java (Android) |
| REST | Management / Control Plane API, Neon Data API (REST), SQL over HTTP | Beams Publish API, Pusher HTTP API |
| MCP | Neon MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Postgres Wire Protocol | Channels Webhooks, Pusher WebSocket |
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