# Neo4j vs Turso

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/neo4j-vs-turso/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Neo4j | Turso |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. | $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58. |
| Pricing model | Usage-based, metered per GB-hour of memory on the Professional tier. A paused database cuts cost by roughly 80%. | Per database, metered on rows rather than compute time: 500 million rows read and 10 million written a month on the free plan, 2.5 billion and 25 million on Developer, with overage at $1 per billion rows read and $1 per million written. |
| Engine | Neo4j, a native property graph database. | SQLite, via libSQL — Turso's own fork. Not Postgres or MySQL, so the query surface and the client libraries differ from every other database on this site. |
| 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. | 10 days on Developer. 1 day on the free plan, 30 days on Scaler and 90 days on Pro. |

## 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/))
- Turso: $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58. ([source](https://turso.tech/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/))
- Turso: Per database, metered on rows rather than compute time: 500 million rows read and 10 million written a month on the free plan, 2.5 billion and 25 million on Developer, with overage at $1 per billion rows read and $1 per million written. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

### Engine

- Neo4j: Neo4j, a native property graph database. ([source](https://neo4j.com/docs/aura/auradb/platform/backup-restore/))
- Turso: SQLite, via libSQL — Turso's own fork. Not Postgres or MySQL, so the query surface and the client libraries differ from every other database on this site. ([source](https://turso.tech/pricing))

### 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. ([source](https://neo4j.com/pricing/))
- Turso: 10 days on Developer. 1 day on the free plan, 30 days on Scaler and 90 days on Pro. ([source](https://turso.tech/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 Turso if Applications that want a database per tenant or per user — 100 databases on the free plan and unlimited above it make that a shape you can actually build.

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: Turso — It is SQLite, not Postgres: the metered units are rows read and written rather than compute, and the extension ecosystem you may be relying on is not there.

## Documented by only one

- 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.
- Storage (entry plan): Turso: 9 GB on Developer, then $0.75 per GB. The free plan includes 5 GB; Scaler is 24 GB at $0.50 and Pro 50 GB at $0.45.
- Regions: Neo4j: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, across more than 60 global cloud regions; also available through the AWS, Azure and Google Cloud marketplaces.
- Database branching: Turso: Supported
- Read replicas: Neo4j: Supported
- 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Neo4j or Turso?**

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.
Turso: $4.99/month for Developer, the cheapest paid plan. Scaler is $24.92 and Pro $416.58.

**Should I choose Neo4j or Turso?**

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 Turso if Applications that want a database per tenant or per user — 100 databases on the free plan and unlimited above it make that a shape you can actually build.