Neon vs PlanetScale
Side-by-side comparison of Neon and PlanetScale. Pricing, features, best use cases, and honest verdict from a developer who has tested both.
Key Takeaways
- +Neon is better for: infrastructure, database, postgres
- +PlanetScale is better for: infrastructure, database, mysql
- ~Both are infrastructure tools. Your choice depends on workflow preference and team setup.
Neon
Serverless Postgres with branching. Free tier, instant database branches per PR, autoscaling compute, and scale-to-zero. Acquired by Databricks in 2025.
PlanetScale
MySQL-compatible serverless database built on Vitess. Branching, non-blocking schema changes, and horizontal sharding. Reintroduced a hobby tier in 2025.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Neon | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Infrastructure | Infrastructure |
| Type | Platform | Platform |
| Pricing | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best For | AI-powered development | AI-powered development |
| Language / Platform | TypeScript | Multi-language |
| Open Source | No | No |
In Depth
Neon
Neon is serverless Postgres built for the modern dev workflow. Branching is the killer feature: you can spin up a copy-on-write branch of your production database for any PR or local dev session in seconds. Compute scales to zero when idle, which makes the free tier genuinely usable. Storage and compute are decoupled, so you can scale them independently. Now part of Databricks, Neon has become the default Postgres choice for new TypeScript projects on platforms like Vercel.
PlanetScale
PlanetScale is a managed MySQL platform built on Vitess, the same sharding layer YouTube uses. The headline features are non-blocking schema changes (deploy requests), database branching, and horizontal scale via Vitess shards. After removing its free tier in 2024 and triggering a migration wave, PlanetScale brought back a hobby tier and now competes hard with Neon. Best fit for MySQL-native teams that need true horizontal scale and zero-downtime schema changes.
The Verdict
Both Neon and PlanetScale are strong tools in the infrastructure space. The right choice depends on your workflow. Read the full review of each tool for a deeper dive, or watch the video walkthroughs to see them in action.
