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 RisingWave
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 RisingWave if streaming teams who will burn the 7-day Cloud trial (no setup), then pay $0.227 per RWU-hour on Basic — or stay on Apache 2.0 self-managed when they will operate Kubernetes themselves.
RisingWave
streaming SQL database
Best for
Neon Postgres metered in CU-hours and GB
RisingWave Always-on SQL views you start with a 7-day Cloud trial or Apache 2.0 on your metal
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
RisingWave No free plan
Lowest paid
Neon Launch $0.106
RisingWave Not published by the vendor
Next step up
Neon Scale $0.222
RisingWave
Coding agent
Neon Branching
RisingWave
Runs where
Neon
RisingWave Hosted
Watch out
Neon Free suspends when CU-hours or 5 GB egress are gone
RisingWave Cloud Basic is a 7-day trial, then RWU-hours
Last checked
Neon 2026-10-22 · neon.com/pricing
RisingWave 2026-10-22 · risingwave.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick RisingWave if
streaming teams who will burn the 7-day Cloud trial (no setup), then pay $0.227 per RWU-hour on Basic — or stay on Apache 2.0 self-managed when they will operate Kubernetes themselves.
Read the RisingWave page