Database

PlanetScale vs Neon vs Supabase

PlanetScale, Neon, Supabase side by side: price, free tier, who each one fits and when to skip it.

Item	PlanetScale	Neon	Supabase
What it does	Managed Postgres and MySQL (Vitess) built for high-traffic production workloads.	Serverless Postgres that scales to zero and lets you branch the database like code.	Postgres database with login, file storage, edge functions and realtime in one project.
Best for	A SaaS that already has paying customers and needs a fast, replicated database it will never have to migrate off.	A founder with several side projects, or one database per customer, who only wants to pay for the hours the database is actually running.	A solo founder who wants login, database and uploads in one place, with a region close to their users so the app feels fast.
Skip it if	You're still validating the idea, since there is no free plan.	You want database, login and file storage in one mature package: Neon's login and storage are much newer than its Postgres.	You plan to leave a free project idle while you validate, since free projects get paused after a week without activity.
Setup	Needs a developer. The database is up in minutes; connecting the app takes an afternoon.	Needs a developer. A database ready to connect in minutes; wiring it into the app takes an afternoon.	Needs a developer. Login and a first table in an afternoon; access rules and email setup take another day or two.
Price	From $5/month (single-node Postgres)	Free; Launch is pay-as-you-go with no minimum	Free, then Pro from $25/month plus usage
What it costs in practice	A SaaS with 2,000 monthly active users and 3 GB of data fits in the smallest sizes in us-east-1. Single-node PS-10 (1 GiB RAM, ARM): $10/month. For production with two standby copies, the 3-node PS-10 ARM: $30/month. Both include 10 GB of disk (estimate, before extra egress).	A SaaS with 2,000 monthly active users and a 3 GB database needs the Launch plan (free is 1 GB). On the smallest size (0.25 CU) running about 12 hours a day: 0.25 × 365 hours × $0.106 ≈ $10, plus 3 GB × $0.35 ≈ $1. About $11/month; kept on 24 hours a day it's about $20 (estimate).	A SaaS with 2,000 monthly active users and a 3 GB database outgrows the free 500 MB, so it goes to Pro: $25/month, which already covers one Micro server, 100k users, 8 GB of disk and 250 GB of egress. Add $10 for a custom domain on login and you're at about $35/month (estimate, in dollars).
Free plan	No free plan; the cheapest database is $5/month.	100 projects, 1 GB per project and 100 compute hours per project each month.	2 projects, 50k monthly users, 500 MB database and 1 GB of files; paused after a week idle.
Free tier	No free plan	1 GB and 100 CU-hours per project	50k MAU, 500 MB DB, 1 GB files
First paid plan	PS-5 Postgres: $5/mo (single node)	Launch: $0.106/CU-hour + $0.35/GB	Free (Pro: $25/mo, 100k MAU included)
Database type	Postgres or MySQL (Vitess)	Serverless Postgres	Postgres
Open source	No: no	Yes: yes	Yes: yes
Before you build	There's no free plan or listed trial; the cheapest database is a $5/month single-node Postgres in us-east-1. Some regions only offer the metal (local NVMe) Postgres sizes, not the cheap PS sizes, so running there costs much more than the headline price. Single-node databases have no replicas: if that server fails, there's no standby copy to take over until you move to the 3-node setup. The single-node PS-5 includes only 10 GB of egress a month; storage beyond the included disk, extra egress and extra backups are billed on top.	On the free plan the database always sleeps after 5 minutes idle, and you can't turn that off; the next query wakes it in a few hundred milliseconds. When a free project runs out of its 100 compute hours, the database is suspended until the next month or until you upgrade. Past 1 GB on a free project, inserts and updates start failing; your data is kept, but the app stops saving. The free plan only lets you restore to a point in the last 6 hours; a mistake noticed the next day can't be undone there.	Free projects are paused after one week without activity, and you get only 2 free projects across all your organizations. The built-in email only reaches members of your Supabase team, at about 2 emails an hour. Real users get no confirmation or reset email until you plug in your own SMTP. Phone login doesn't send SMS by itself: you open an account with Twilio, MessageBird or Vonage and pay them per message. The free plan has no automatic backups; Pro keeps 7 days, and point-in-time restore is an add-on of about $100/month. The Pro fee is per organization, but each project runs its own server: every extra project adds compute (Micro is $10/month) on top.
Price checked	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing	Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing

Prices are read from each official pricing page on the date shown and can change. Always confirm before signing up.

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