PlanetScale vs Prisma: pricing, quotas & features (2025)
Serverless MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres at scale
vs. Next-gen ORM + serverless data platform (Postgres + Accelerate + Pulse)
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026
Summary
PlanetScale and Prisma 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's paid plans start at $5/month, lower than Prisma's entry point at $29/month. Prisma has a broader documented feature set (13 vs 12 features). Budget-sensitive teams will find PlanetScale easier to justify early on. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from PlanetScale and Prisma's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
PlanetScale vs Prisma: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2025)
En esta comparativa analizamos PlanetScale y Prisma 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.
PlanetScale es una plataforma de 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 en Staxly documenta 12 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.
Prisma pertenece a la categoría dbaas — Next-gen ORM + serverless data platform (Postgres + Accelerate + Pulse). Ofrece 5 tiers de precio: Prisma ORM (OSS) gratuito, Prisma Postgres — Free gratuito, Starter desde $29/mes, Pro desde $99/mes. Su catálogo documenta 13 características y 7 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.
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Pricing tiers
PlanetScale
Prisma
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing pg-ebs-nonha-starter on PlanetScale vs starter on Prisma.
| Metric | PlanetScale | Prisma |
|---|---|---|
| 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.
Prisma · 13 features
- Client Extensions — Extend the client with middleware.
- Edge Runtime — Runs on Vercel/CF edge via Accelerate.
- End-to-end Type Safety — Types flow from schema to client.
- Prisma Accelerate — Global connection pool + query cache.
- Prisma Migrate — Schema migrations.
- Prisma ORM — OSS ORM for Node/TS.
- Prisma Optimize — AI-driven query recommendations.
- Prisma Postgres — Serverless Postgres built on Accelerate.
- Prisma Pulse — Database CDC streaming.
- Prisma Studio — GUI to browse + edit DB.
- Raw SQL + typedSql — Escape hatch for raw queries with types.
- Relation Querying — Nested include / select.
- Zero Cold Start Pool — Accelerate keeps a warm pool for serverless.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | PlanetScale | Prisma |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | PlanetScale CLI (pscale) | prisma CLI |
| SDK | @planetscale/database | @prisma/client |
| REST | Management API | — |
| MCP | PlanetScale MCP | — |
| OTHER | MySQL Wire Protocol, Postgres Wire Protocol | Prisma Accelerate, Prisma Data Platform, Prisma Optimize, Prisma Postgres, Prisma Pulse (CDC) |
Key takeaways
- Both PlanetScale and Prisma offer a free tier — PlanetScale ("Enterprise") and Prisma ("Prisma ORM (OSS)") — with no credit card required to start.
- The entry-level paid plan is $5/month for PlanetScale (Postgres EBS single-node — PS-5) vs. $29/month for Prisma (Starter).
- Prisma has a broader documented feature set (13 features) vs. PlanetScale (12 features) in Staxly's catalog.
- Developer integrations differ: only PlanetScale offers REST/MCP.
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