# Neo4j vs Prisma Postgres

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/neo4j-vs-prisma-postgres/

Every value below is read from Neo4j's and Prisma Postgres's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Neo4j | Prisma Postgres |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| 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. | $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance. |
| Pricing model | Usage-based, metered per GB-hour of memory on the Professional tier. A paused database cuts cost by roughly 80%. | A plan fee plus usage: requests, memory GB-hours, active vCPU-hours and outbound bandwidth are each metered — $1 per million requests beyond the allowance, $0.006 per GB-hour, $0.064 per vCPU-hour, $0.025 per GB out. |
| 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. | Prisma for Startups: database bill covered up to $10,000 for one year, plus 1:1 guidance. Venture-funded track requires pre-seed/seed/Series-A funding raised in the last 12 months and founded in the last 5 years; bootstrapped track requires ≥5k MRR for 6 months and 2 full-time team members. |
| Engine | Neo4j, a native property graph database. | PostgreSQL. |
| 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. | Daily backups with 7-day retention on Starter and Pro, 30 days on Business. The free plan has none. |

## 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. ([source](https://neo4j.com/pricing/))
- Prisma Postgres: $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Neo4j: Usage-based, metered per GB-hour of memory on the Professional tier. A paused database cuts cost by roughly 80%. ([source](https://neo4j.com/pricing/))
- Prisma Postgres: A plan fee plus usage: requests, memory GB-hours, active vCPU-hours and outbound bandwidth are each metered — $1 per million requests beyond the allowance, $0.006 per GB-hour, $0.064 per vCPU-hour, $0.025 per GB out. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

### 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. ([source](https://neo4j.com/startups/))
- Prisma Postgres: Prisma for Startups: database bill covered up to $10,000 for one year, plus 1:1 guidance. Venture-funded track requires pre-seed/seed/Series-A funding raised in the last 12 months and founded in the last 5 years; bootstrapped track requires ≥5k MRR for 6 months and 2 full-time team members. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/startups))

### Engine

- Neo4j: Neo4j, a native property graph database. ([source](https://neo4j.com/docs/aura/auradb/platform/backup-restore/))
- Prisma Postgres: PostgreSQL. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

### 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. ([source](https://neo4j.com/pricing/))
- Prisma Postgres: Daily backups with 7-day retention on Starter and Pro, 30 days on Business. The free plan has none. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

## Which should you choose?

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 Prisma Postgres if Prisma ORM users who want the database and the client from one vendor, with a pooled connection limit stated per plan rather than left to be discovered.

Consider something else: 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.

Consider something else: Prisma Postgres — Four separate meters — requests, memory, vCPU and bandwidth — sit on top of the plan fee, so the monthly number is a floor rather than a bill.

## Documented by only one

- Storage (entry plan): Prisma Postgres: 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond.
- Managed connection pooling: Prisma Postgres: Supported
- Regions: Neo4j: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, across more than 60 global cloud regions; also available through the AWS, Azure and Google Cloud marketplaces.
- Connection limit: Prisma Postgres: 100 pooled connections on Starter and 10 direct; 10 pooled on Free, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Business.
- When idle: Prisma Postgres: Scales to zero when idle, and Prisma states an idle app costs nothing.
- 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.
- Read replicas: Neo4j: Supported

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Neo4j or Prisma Postgres?**

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.
Prisma Postgres: $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance.

**Should I choose Neo4j or Prisma Postgres?**

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 Prisma Postgres if Prisma ORM users who want the database and the client from one vendor, with a pooled connection limit stated per plan rather than left to be discovered.