PlanetScale vs Postman
Serverless MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres at scale
vs. The world's most popular API platform — 30M+ developers
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
Postman
Free
$0. 3 users. 1,000 collection runs/mo. Unlimited collections. 1,000 calls/mo to mock servers. 14-day history.
Free
Basic
$19/user/mo. 10,000 collection runs, 50 integrations, 60-day history, integrations.
$19/mo
Professional
$39/user/mo. 250,000 runs, API mocking, monitoring, version tags, governance lite.
$39/mo
Enterprise
$99/user/mo (Ultimate). Unlimited runs, SSO/SAML, RBAC, IP allowlist, private cloud, audit.
$99/mo
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing pg-ebs-nonha-starter on PlanetScale vs free on Postman.
| Metric | PlanetScale | Postman |
|---|---|---|
| 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.
Postman · 17 features
- API Documentation — Public + private docs from collections.
- API Versioning — Manage multiple API versions.
- Collection Runner — Run N iterations with data.
- Collections — Saved request groups + runners.
- Desktop App — Native Mac/Win/Linux.
- Environments — Per-env variables.
- Flows (low-code) — Visual workflow builder.
- Governance — API design rules enforcement.
- Mock Servers — Auto-generated mocks.
- Monitors — Scheduled collection runs + alerts.
- Newman CLI — CI/CD collection runner.
- Postman AI — Generate tests + docs with AI.
- Pre-request / Test Scripts — JS scripts + assertions.
- Public API Network — Discoverable APIs marketplace.
- Request Builder — GUI for any HTTP request.
- Request History — Per-user request log.
- VS Code Extension — Requests inside VS Code.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | PlanetScale | Postman |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | PlanetScale CLI (pscale) | newman (CLI) |
| SDK | @planetscale/database | — |
| REST | Management API | Postman API |
| MCP | PlanetScale MCP | — |
| OTHER | MySQL Wire Protocol, Postgres Wire Protocol | Postman Desktop, Postman VS Code Extension, Postman Web, Public API Network |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to PlanetScale and Postman 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.
Want this comparison in your AI agent's context? Install the free Staxly MCP server.