Aiven vs PlanetScale
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Aiven and PlanetScale built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose Aiven if…
Teams who want more than one open-source data service from one vendor and one bill — Postgres beside Kafka, ClickHouse or OpenSearch — with the availability tier chosen per service rather than fixed.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose PlanetScale if…
Production workloads that want replicas across availability zones as the default shape rather than an upgrade, and teams who need MySQL-compatible sharding that the Postgres-only services do not offer.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Aiven: You want long recovery history on a cheap plan. Backup history is what the plan tiers buy here: two days on the entry paid plan against thirty at the top.
- PlanetScale: You are prototyping. Pricing starts at a node rather than at zero, and there is no free tier documented on the pricing page.
8 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Aiven 0
PlanetScale 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Aiven | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes — indefinite, but idle services are powered off | No |
| Entry paid plan | $5 a month for Developer — one VM, 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB storage, with no choice of cloud or region and no connection pooling. The first plan that behaves like a production service is Startup at $75 a month or $0.10 an hour, which is where the uptime SLA and multi-CPU sizing begin; Hobbyist sits between them at $12. | $5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month |
| Pricing model | Fixed plans quoted both monthly and hourly, with the plan setting CPU, RAM and storage together rather than metering them separately. Aiven describes the pricing as all-inclusive: backups, monitoring and support come with the plan instead of appearing as line items. Higher tiers buy node count and backup history — Business adds a standby node, Premium a second. | Priced by node size and storage rather than usage, with high-availability clusters sold as a primary plus two replicas |
| Execution | ||
| Managed connection pooling | Supported — not on the Free or Developer tiers | Supported |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Regions | 153 regions across six clouds — AWS 25, Google 42, Azure 39, OVH 22, UpCloud 16, DigitalOcean 9 — counted from Aiven's own reference list, which publishes the regions and no total. No magnitude is recorded, because Aiven states on that same page that the list differs per project and that not all service types are available in every cloud and region: the number is the platform's reach, not PostgreSQL's, and a bar drawn from it would be compared against providers whose counts are engine-specific. | 19 regions — 12 on AWS (Tokyo, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Montreal, Frankfurt, Dublin, London, São Paulo, N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon) and 7 on GCP. A branch's region is fixed at creation and changing it means migrating. |
| Data | ||
| Engine | PostgreSQL, alongside MySQL, ClickHouse, OpenSearch, Valkey, Kafka, Flink and Grafana. Aiven runs the upstream projects rather than a compatible reimplementation, which is why its own docs point at postgresql.org for per-release detail. | PostgreSQL, and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters with horizontal sharding |
| Database branching | Limited — a full copy from the latest backup, not copy-on-write | Supported |
| Point-in-time recovery | Bounded by the plan's backup history, so 2 days on the entry paid plan and 30 at the top. Granularity is fine within that: full backups daily with write-ahead logs copied every 5 minutes or per new file, whichever comes first. | Point-in-time recovery through write-ahead log archiving. WAL is kept for as long as the oldest backup, so the default schedule gives a 2-day window and a longer retention extends it. |
| Read replicas | Supported | Supported |
| Backup retention | By plan: none on Hobbyist, 2 days on Startup, 14 on Business, 30 on Premium. The magnitude is Startup's 2 days, the entry paid plan. Aiven's high-availability page states 2 days for Hobbyist where the backups page states none — the backups page is the more specific of the two and is what is recorded here. | Automatic backups every 12 hours on production and development branches, retained 2 days by default. Custom schedules and manual backups can set a longer period, and are charged for it. |
Where they differ.
Free tier
- Aiven
- Yes — indefinite, but idle services are powered off
- PlanetScale
- No
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Free plans — Aiven docs ↗
“You don't need a credit card to create a free service and you can use them indefinitely free of charge. Free services do not have any time limitations. However, Aiven reserves the right to: Power off free services with no initial usage within the first few hours after the service is running. [...] Power off free services with no continuative activity on the service.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- PlanetScale pricing (machine-readable) ↗
“Postgres EBS non-HA (single node) | PS-5 | x86-64 | 1/16 | 512 MiB | $5 |”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing
Entry paid plan
- Aiven
- $5 a month for Developer — one VM, 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB storage, with no choice of cloud or region and no connection pooling. The first plan that behaves like a production service is Startup at $75 a month or $0.10 an hour, which is where the uptime SLA and multi-CPU sizing begin; Hobbyist sits between them at $12.
- PlanetScale
- $5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Plans & Pricing — Aiven ↗
“Free $0 / month [...] 1 GB total storage Cannot select a specific cloud or region No integrations or connection pooling Developer $5 / month [...] 8 GB total storage Cannot select a specific cloud or region No integrations or connection pooling Hobbyist starting from $12 / month $0.02 / hour [...] Startup starting from $75 / month $0.10 / hour [...] 99.99% uptime SLA Business starting from $180 / month $0.25 / hour”
Read 2026-09-09 · official pricing
- Pricing — PlanetScale ↗
“PlanetScale Postgres [...] Single node — Starting at $5/month for development and low-traffic workloads Metal — Starting at $50/month with local NVMe storage for high-performance needs High Availability — 1 primary + 2 replicas across 3 availability zones”
Read 2026-09-05 · official pricing
Pricing model
- Aiven
- Fixed plans quoted both monthly and hourly, with the plan setting CPU, RAM and storage together rather than metering them separately. Aiven describes the pricing as all-inclusive: backups, monitoring and support come with the plan instead of appearing as line items. Higher tiers buy node count and backup history — Business adds a standby node, Premium a second.
- PlanetScale
- Priced by node size and storage rather than usage, with high-availability clusters sold as a primary plus two replicas
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Plans & Pricing — Aiven ↗
“Aiven's pricing is all-inclusive and transparent, providing you with the confidence [...] Startup starting from $75 / month $0.10 / hour [...] Business starting from $180 / month $0.25 / hour [...] Everything in Startup, plus high availability Premium starting from $270 / month $0.37 / hour”
Read 2026-09-09 · official pricing
- Pricing — PlanetScale ↗
“A primary and two included replica nodes ideal for high-availability workloads. 99.99% SLA.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official pricing
Regions
- Aiven
- 153 regions across six clouds — AWS 25, Google 42, Azure 39, OVH 22, UpCloud 16, DigitalOcean 9 — counted from Aiven's own reference list, which publishes the regions and no total. No magnitude is recorded, because Aiven states on that same page that the list differs per project and that not all service types are available in every cloud and region: the number is the platform's reach, not PostgreSQL's, and a bar drawn from it would be compared against providers whose counts are engine-specific.
- PlanetScale
- 19 regions — 12 on AWS (Tokyo, Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Montreal, Frankfurt, Dublin, London, São Paulo, N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon) and 7 on GCP. A branch's region is fixed at creation and changing it means migrating.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Available cloud regions — Aiven docs ↗
“This is a reference list of the default cloud regions available per provider on the Aiven Platform. note The list of available clouds can differ per project. Not all Aiven service types are available for all cloud providers and regions.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Selecting a region — PlanetScale Docs ↗
“Currently, the following regions are supported, with their respective PlanetScale slugs: AWS ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo) [...] AWS us-west-2 (Oregon) [...] GCP us-central1 (Council Bluffs, Iowa) [...] GCP europe-west4 (Eemshaven, Netherlands) [...] Once you select a region for your default branch, it cannot be changed directly, but you can migrate to a new region if needed.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Engine
- Aiven
- PostgreSQL, alongside MySQL, ClickHouse, OpenSearch, Valkey, Kafka, Flink and Grafana. Aiven runs the upstream projects rather than a compatible reimplementation, which is why its own docs point at postgresql.org for per-release detail.
- PlanetScale
- PostgreSQL, and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters with horizontal sharding
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Aiven for PostgreSQL® — Aiven docs ↗
“Aiven for PostgreSQL is the perfect fit for your relational data. A scalable SQL database solution that can be up and running within a few minutes. [...] Find a comprehensive per-release documentation on the PostgreSQL project website.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Pricing — PlanetScale ↗
“MySQL-compatible with horizontal sharding for massive scale. Runs on network-attached storage or PlanetScale Metal.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official site
Database branching
- Aiven
- Limited — a full copy from the latest backup, not copy-on-write
- PlanetScale
- Supported
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Fork a service — Aiven for PostgreSQL® — Aiven docs ↗
“Fork your Aiven for PostgreSQL® service to create an independent copy for testing, debugging, or development without affecting the original service. Fork an Aiven service to create a complete copy of it from its latest backup. Forked services are independent and don't share resources with or increase the load on the original service. Common use cases for forking include: Creating a snapshot to analyze an issue. Creating a development copy of your production environment.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Branching — PlanetScale Docs ↗
“PlanetScale Postgres provides two types of database branches: Development branches — Development branches run on PS-DEV instances that have limited performance capabilities, different egress rates, and no replicas. [...] Production branches — Production branches are intended for production traffic and include optional replicas for high availability.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Point-in-time recovery
Bounded by the plan's backup history, so 2 days on the entry paid plan and 30 at the top. Granularity is fine within that: full backups daily with write-ahead logs copied every 5 minutes or per new file, whichever comes first.
Point-in-time recovery through write-ahead log archiving. WAL is kept for as long as the oldest backup, so the default schedule gives a 2-day window and a longer retention extends it.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Aiven for PostgreSQL® backups — Aiven docs ↗
“Aiven for PostgreSQL® databases are automatically backed up, with full backups made daily, and write-ahead logs (WAL) copied at 5 minute intervals, or for every new file generated. All backups are encrypted using pghoard, an open source tool developed and maintained by Aiven.”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Back up and restore — PlanetScale Docs ↗
“PlanetScale Postgres databases include comprehensive backup and restore capabilities to protect your data. The backup system provides both automated scheduled backups and manual on-demand backups, as well as point-in-time recovery (PITR) support through Write-Ahead Log (WAL) archiving. [...] WAL logs are retained for the same period as your oldest backup.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
Backup retention
By plan: none on Hobbyist, 2 days on Startup, 14 on Business, 30 on Premium. The magnitude is Startup's 2 days, the entry paid plan. Aiven's high-availability page states 2 days for Hobbyist where the backups page states none — the backups page is the more specific of the two and is what is recorded here.
Automatic backups every 12 hours on production and development branches, retained 2 days by default. Custom schedules and manual backups can set a longer period, and are charged for it.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Aiven for PostgreSQL® backups — Aiven docs ↗
“Backup retention time by plan The number of stored backups and the backup retention time depends on the service plan that you have selected. Plan Type Backup Retention Time Hobbyist None Startup 2 days Business 14 days Premium 30 days”
Read 2026-09-09 · official docs
- Back up and restore — PlanetScale Docs ↗
“All PlanetScale Postgres databases include automatic scheduled backups that run every 12 hours for production and development branches. Default backups are created automatically and don't require any setup. There are no additional charges for these backups. [...] The default, included backup schedule retains backups for 2 days. You can set a custom retention period for custom backup schedules and manual one-off backups.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Aiven or PlanetScale?
Aiven: $5 a month for Developer — one VM, 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB storage, with no choice of cloud or region and no connection pooling. The first plan that behaves like a production service is Startup at $75 a month or $0.10 an hour, which is where the uptime SLA and multi-CPU sizing begin; Hobbyist sits between them at $12.
PlanetScale: $5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month
Free tier: Aiven or PlanetScale?
Aiven: Yes — indefinite, but idle services are powered off
PlanetScale: No
Should I choose Aiven or PlanetScale?
Pick Aiven if Teams who want more than one open-source data service from one vendor and one bill — Postgres beside Kafka, ClickHouse or OpenSearch — with the availability tier chosen per service rather than fixed.
Pick PlanetScale if Production workloads that want replicas across availability zones as the default shape rather than an upgrade, and teams who need MySQL-compatible sharding that the Postgres-only services do not offer.