Neo4j vs Neon
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Neo4j and Neon built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose Neo4j if…
Teams whose data is naturally relationships-first — recommendation engines, fraud detection, knowledge graphs — where the query itself is a graph traversal Cypher expresses directly and a relational join chain would not.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Neon if…
Workloads that are idle most of the time, and teams who want a real database per pull request. Compute suspends after five minutes and storage is billed separately, so a staging branch costs almost nothing while nobody is using it.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Neo4j: The data model is tabular and the graph shape is incidental — most CRUD apps fit a relational or document database better, and Neo4j's per-GB memory pricing is a worse fit for large flat datasets than a row-store.
- Neon: You need predictable monthly billing. Usage pricing with no minimum fee cuts both ways, and a runaway query on an autoscaling compute is billed at the rate it ran.
Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Neo4j alternatives · Neon alternatives
9 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.
Neo4j 0
Neon 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Neo4j | Neon |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | Free tier |
| Credit card to start | No | No |
| Entry paid plan | $65/GB/month (minimum 1GB cluster) on AuraDB Professional, or $0.09/hour ($65.70/month for 1GB) metered hourly. 14-day free trial available. | No fixed monthly fee. Launch is usage-based — Neon's own worked example puts typical spend at $15/month for intermittent load on 1 GB — so there is no entry price to compare, only a rate card. Recorded without a magnitude because a vendor's spend estimate is not a price. |
| Pricing model | Usage-based, metered per GB-hour of memory on the Professional tier. A paused database cuts cost by roughly 80%. | Usage-based with no minimum monthly fee on paid plans: $0.106/CU-hour compute and $0.35/GB-month storage on Launch, $0.222/CU-hour on Scale |
| Startup credit program | Neo4j for Startups: up to $16K in Aura credits. Requires Series B or earlier funding, a single product sold to many customers (not custom per-customer work), a functioning website, and a company LinkedIn profile. | Via the Databricks Startup Program: up to $1,000 in Neon credits for self-funded startups (<$1M raised), or up to $200K in Neon and Databricks credits for VC-backed startups (≥$1M raised) or accelerator participants. Credits valid 12 months from acceptance. |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Regions | AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, across more than 60 global cloud regions; also available through the AWS, Azure and Google Cloud marketplaces. | 8 AWS regions: N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Sydney, São Paulo. A project's region is fixed at creation and cannot be changed. |
| Data | ||
| Engine | Neo4j, a native property graph database. | PostgreSQL |
| Point-in-time recovery | Not included on the entry-paid (Professional) tier — point-in-time restore is a Business Critical feature, with hourly granularity and 30-day retention. | History window of 6 hours up to 1 GB-month on Free, up to 7 days on Launch, up to 30 days on Scale |
| Read replicas | Limited — Secondaries are a Business Critical and Virtual Dedicated Cloud feature; not on Free or Professional. | Supported |
| Backup retention | Daily backups, 7-day retention on the entry-paid (Professional) tier. Business Critical adds 30-day retention with hourly point-in-time restore; Virtual Dedicated Cloud gets hourly backups with 60-day retention. | 1 day of history on paid plans by default and 6 hours on Free, configurable up to 7 days on Launch or 30 days on Scale. Neon notes that widening the window raises storage cost, so the ceiling is a paid choice rather than an included allowance. |
| Support | ||
| Support on entry paid plan | Four tiered packages — Essential, Regional, Global and Signature — with service level targets set by issue severity. | Support plans are mapped to pricing plans: community support on Free, billing support on Launch, standard support on Scale. |
Where they differ.
Entry paid plan
- Neo4j
- $65/GB/month (minimum 1GB cluster) on AuraDB Professional, or $0.09/hour ($65.70/month for 1GB) metered hourly. 14-day free trial available.
- Neon
- No fixed monthly fee. Launch is usage-based — Neon's own worked example puts typical spend at $15/month for intermittent load on 1 GB — so there is no entry price to compare, only a rate card. Recorded without a magnitude because a vendor's spend estimate is not a price.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Pricing ↗
“AuraDB Professional $65 /GB/month* (minimum 1GB cluster) [...] AuraDB Professional pricing 14-day free trial available. Try it now. Memory CPU Storage Hourly Monthly 1GB 1CPU 2GB $0.09/hour $65.70/month”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction
- Pricing — Neon ↗
“Launch Usage-based Typical spend: $ 15 /mo Based on: Intermittent load , 1 GB Get started”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing · Report a correction
Pricing model
- Neo4j
- Usage-based, metered per GB-hour of memory on the Professional tier. A paused database cuts cost by roughly 80%.
- Neon
- Usage-based with no minimum monthly fee on paid plans: $0.106/CU-hour compute and $0.35/GB-month storage on Launch, $0.222/CU-hour on Scale
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Pricing ↗
“Pause database, save 80% costs Pause your database when not in use and save 80% of running costs. [...] Capacity-based consumption pricing Included in your price: Storage, IO, Backup, and Data Transfer.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction
- Neon plans — Neon Docs ↗
“On Launch and Scale plans, you pay only for what you use; there's no minimum monthly fee. Usage for compute, storage, extra branches, and other features is billed at the published rates”
Read 2026-09-05 · official pricing · Report a correction
Startup credit program
- Neo4j
- Neo4j for Startups: up to $16K in Aura credits. Requires Series B or earlier funding, a single product sold to many customers (not custom per-customer work), a functioning website, and a company LinkedIn profile.
- Neon
- Via the Databricks Startup Program: up to $1,000 in Neon credits for self-funded startups (<$1M raised), or up to $200K in Neon and Databricks credits for VC-backed startups (≥$1M raised) or accelerator participants. Credits valid 12 months from acceptance.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j for Startups ↗
“up to $16K in Aura credits. Series B or earlier. Startups building a single product for many customers, not a custom product for individual customers.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official site · Report a correction
- Neon Startup Program ↗
“Self-Funded: Early-stage, self-funded startups. Less than $1M in funding [...] Up to $1,000 in Neon credits. Venture-Backed: VC-backed startups with at least $1M in funding [...] Up to $200K in Neon and Databricks credits. Credits are valid for 12 months from the date of acceptance.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official site · Report a correction
Regions
- Neo4j
- AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, across more than 60 global cloud regions; also available through the AWS, Azure and Google Cloud marketplaces.
- Neon
- 8 AWS regions: N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Sydney, São Paulo. A project's region is fixed at creation and cannot be changed.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Pricing ↗
“AuraDB is available on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. You can deploy AuraDB in over 60 global cloud regions. [...] AuraDB on AWS Marketplace AuraDB on Azure Marketplace AuraDB on Google Cloud Marketplace”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction
- Regions — Neon Docs ↗
“Each Neon project exists in exactly one region. Your database runs in that region. You cannot change the region for an existing project. If you need your data in a different region, you create a new Neon project in that region and migrate your database there.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
Engine
- Neo4j
- Neo4j, a native property graph database.
- Neon
- PostgreSQL
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Aura documentation ↗
“Neo4j Aura is a fully automated graph platform offered as a cloud service.”
Read 2026-09-11 · official docs · Report a correction
- Connection pooling — Neon Docs ↗
“Each Postgres connection creates a new process in the operating system, consuming memory and CPU resources. Postgres limits the number of connections based on available RAM.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
Point-in-time recovery
- Neo4j
- Not included on the entry-paid (Professional) tier — point-in-time restore is a Business Critical feature, with hourly granularity and 30-day retention.
- Neon
- History window of 6 hours up to 1 GB-month on Free, up to 7 days on Launch, up to 30 days on Scale
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Pricing ↗
“Daily backups, 7-day retention Available on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud [...] Daily backups with 30-day retention and hourly point-in-time restore Role-based access control with granular security”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction
- Neon plans — Neon Docs ↗
“History window 6 hours, up to 1 GB-month Up to 7 days Up to 30 days”
Read 2026-09-05 · official pricing · Report a correction
Read replicas
- Neo4j
- Limited — Secondaries are a Business Critical and Virtual Dedicated Cloud feature; not on Free or Professional.
- Neon
- Supported
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Pricing ↗
“Secondaries Not Included Not Included Included Included Vector Optimization Not Included Included Included Included”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction
- Neon Read Replicas — Neon Docs ↗
“Neon read replicas are independent computes designed to perform read operations on the same data as your primary read-write compute. Neon's read replicas do not replicate or duplicate data. Instead, read requests are served from the same storage”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
Backup retention
- Neo4j
- Daily backups, 7-day retention on the entry-paid (Professional) tier. Business Critical adds 30-day retention with hourly point-in-time restore; Virtual Dedicated Cloud gets hourly backups with 60-day retention.
- Neon
- 1 day of history on paid plans by default and 6 hours on Free, configurable up to 7 days on Launch or 30 days on Scale. Neon notes that widening the window raises storage cost, so the ceiling is a paid choice rather than an included allowance.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Pricing ↗
“Daily backups, 7-day retention Available on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud [...] Daily backups with 30-day retention and hourly point-in-time restore [...] Hourly backups with 60-day retention”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction
- Point-in-time restore — Neon Docs ↗
“Neon retains a history of changes for your branches, with defaults of 6 hours on Free plan and 1 day on paid plans. [...] You can configure it up to 7 days on Launch or 30 days on Scale plans.”
Read 2026-09-07 · official docs · Report a correction
Support on entry paid plan
- Neo4j
- Four tiered packages — Essential, Regional, Global and Signature — with service level targets set by issue severity.
- Neon
- Support plans are mapped to pricing plans: community support on Free, billing support on Launch, standard support on Scale.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neo4j Product & Support Terms ↗
“support is delivered through four tiered packages-essential, regional, global, and signature-with defined service level targets (slt) based on severity.”
Read 2026-09-14 · official site · Report a correction
- Support — Neon Docs ↗
“neon's support plans are mapped to neon pricing plans, as outlined in the following table. neon pricing plan support plan options free plan community support launch plan billing support scale plan standard support”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Neo4j or Neon?
Neo4j: $65/GB/month (minimum 1GB cluster) on AuraDB Professional, or $0.09/hour ($65.70/month for 1GB) metered hourly. 14-day free trial available.
Neon: No fixed monthly fee. Launch is usage-based — Neon's own worked example puts typical spend at $15/month for intermittent load on 1 GB — so there is no entry price to compare, only a rate card. Recorded without a magnitude because a vendor's spend estimate is not a price.
Should I choose Neo4j or Neon?
Pick Neo4j if Teams whose data is naturally relationships-first — recommendation engines, fraud detection, knowledge graphs — where the query itself is a graph traversal Cypher expresses directly and a relational join chain would not.
Pick Neon if Workloads that are idle most of the time, and teams who want a real database per pull request. Compute suspends after five minutes and storage is billed separately, so a staging branch costs almost nothing while nobody is using it.
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