Pick Neon if
builders who will stay on Free $0 (100 CU-hours/project, 1 GB, 10 branches), then move to Launch (pay-as-you-go, $0.106/CU-hour, $0.35/GB-month) when writes or idle-always-on matter.
Read the Neon pageNeon vs PlanetScale
Our take
Pick Neon if builders who will stay on Free $0 (100 CU-hours/project, 1 GB, 10 branches), then move to Launch (pay-as-you-go, $0.106/CU-hour, $0.35/GB-month) when writes or idle-always-on matter. Pick PlanetScale if app teams who will start Base at $5/month (single-node Postgres) or $30/month (PS-10 arm64 HA in us-east-1) while they open a first Cluster configuration screen, then add $5 PS-DEV branches or extra
PlanetScale
branching database desk
Best for
Neon Postgres metered in CU-hours and GB
PlanetScale A cluster you start at $5 / $30
Free plan
Neon $0 · 100 projects. 10 branches/project. 100 CU-hours/project. Autoscaling up to 2 CU. Scale-to-zero after 5 min (cannot disable). 1 GB/project Postgres, 20 GB account. 5 GB egress/project. 6-hour history. 1 snapshot. Auth 60k MAU. 5 GB object storage. Functions: 10 active / 400 waiting Capacity-Hours, 1M invocations. Hitting CU or egress suspends compute until next cycle; storage cap blocks writes
PlanetScale No free plan
Lowest paid
Neon Launch $0.106
PlanetScale Storage overage $0.50
Next step up
Neon Scale $0.222
PlanetScale Postgres single-node $5/mo
Coding agent
Neon Branching
PlanetScale
Watch out
Neon Free suspends when CU-hours or 5 GB egress are gone
PlanetScale There is no $0 Hobby card
Last checked
Neon 2026-10-22 · neon.com/pricing
PlanetScale 2026-10-23 · planetscale.com/pricing.md
Which one, then?
Pick PlanetScale if
app teams who will start Base at $5/month (single-node Postgres) or $30/month (PS-10 arm64 HA in us-east-1) while they open a first Cluster configuration screen, then add $5 PS-DEV branches or extra production SKUs when they need a deploy-request workflow.
Read the PlanetScale page