PlanetScale vs Figma
Serverless MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres at scale
vs. Collaborative interface design — the dominant tool for UI, UX + prototyping
Pricing tiers
PlanetScale
Postgres EBS single-node — PS-5
Single-node EBS, 512 MiB RAM, arm64. Entry point for Postgres.
$5/mo
Postgres EBS HA — PS-5
3-node (primary + 2 replicas), 512 MiB, arm64.
$15/mo
Vitess (non-Metal) — PS-10
Vitess MySQL sharded cluster, 1 GiB RAM.
$39/mo
Postgres Metal — M-10
3-node Metal, 1 GiB RAM + 10 GiB local storage. Much higher IOPS.
$50/mo
Vitess Metal — M-160
Vitess Metal, 16 GiB RAM + 110 GiB storage.
$609/mo
Enterprise
Custom agreements, dedicated regions, 99.99% SLA.
Custom
Figma
Starter
$0. 3 Figma files, 3 FigJam files. Unlimited collaborators. Basic features.
$0 base (usage-based)
Professional
$15/editor/mo annual ($20/mo). Unlimited files, version history, team libraries.
$15/mo
Dev Mode Seats
$25/dev/mo. Read-only access for engineers (alternative to full editor seats).
$25/mo
Organization
$45/editor/mo annual ($55/mo). Design systems, branch + merge, SSO.
$45/mo
Enterprise
$75/editor/mo. SAML, audit log, security reviews, dedicated CSM, HIPAA.
$75/mo
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing pg-ebs-nonha-starter on PlanetScale vs free on Figma.
| Metric | PlanetScale | Figma |
|---|---|---|
| ha | 0 nodes | — |
| ram mib | 512 MiB | — |
Features
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.
Figma · 19 features
- Auto Layout — Flexbox-like layout constraints.
- Branch + Merge — Git-like workflow for designs.
- Comments + Reactions — In-file discussion.
- Components — Reusable + variants + properties.
- Design — Vector + layout tools.
- Dev Mode — Handoff view with code specs.
- FigJam — Whiteboard / brainstorming.
- Figma AI — Generative design + Make Designs.
- Figma MCP — AI agent access via Model Context Protocol.
- Figma Slides — Presentations.
- Inspect + Code Tokens — Extract CSS/iOS/Android.
- Plugin Ecosystem — 10,000+ community plugins.
- Prototyping — Interactive flows + transitions.
- REST API — Read file contents + export.
- SSO — SAML/OIDC (Org+).
- Team Libraries — Shared component libraries.
- Variables + Modes — Design tokens with dark/light mode switching.
- Webhooks — File / version events.
- Widgets — Custom interactive widgets in files.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | PlanetScale | Figma |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | PlanetScale CLI (pscale) | — |
| SDK | @planetscale/database | Plugins API, Widgets API |
| REST | Management API | Figma REST API |
| MCP | PlanetScale MCP | Figma MCP (Dev Mode) |
| OTHER | MySQL Wire Protocol, Postgres Wire Protocol | Figma Desktop, Figma Web, Figma Webhooks |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to PlanetScale and Figma may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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