Our take
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. Pick SurrealDB if app teams who will stay on Cloud Start at $0/hour (first instance, 1 GB storage, daily backups) while they open a first
branching database desk
multi-model database desk
Best for
PlanetScale A cluster you start at $5 / $30
SurrealDB An instance you start at $0
Free plan
PlanetScale No free plan
SurrealDB $0 · /hour (Free · 0.25 vCPU · 1 GB). 1 GB storage free forever. Further instances from $0.021/hour. Daily automated backups. Vertical scale. Cloud RBAC/ABAC
Lowest paid
PlanetScale Storage overage $0.50
SurrealDB Scale $0.192
Next step up
PlanetScale Postgres single-node $5/mo
SurrealDB Start storage $0.239
Coding agent
PlanetScale
SurrealDB Self-host / Cloud
Runs where
PlanetScale
SurrealDB Hosted
Watch out
PlanetScale There is no $0 Hobby card
SurrealDB $0 is the first Start instance only
Last checked
PlanetScale 2026-10-23 · planetscale.com/pricing.md
SurrealDB 2026-10-23 · surrealdb.com/pricing
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 pageapp teams who will stay on Cloud Start at $0/hour (first instance, 1 GB storage, daily backups) while they open a first Instances list, then add a burstable small at $0.021/hour ($15.33/month if it ran 730 hours) when they need a second instance or more CPU.
Read the SurrealDB page