Neon vs Nile
A comparison of Neon and Nile built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- 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.
- Pick Nile if
- Multi-tenant SaaS where every customer wants isolation — Nile makes a database per tenant the default shape rather than something you build on top of Postgres.
6 sourced criteria separate them:
- Entry paid plan
- 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.
- Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
- Pricing model
- 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
- Nile: Priced on queries rather than instances, with a $15 base for Pro. Nile's own framing is "Pay for queries, not for instances", and additional tokens are $0.05 per million.
- Storage (entry plan)
- Neon: No included allowance on the Launch plan; storage is metered at $0.35/GB-month. The Free plan includes 0.5 GB per project.
- Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.
- Engine
- Neon: PostgreSQL
- Nile: PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited.
- Connection limit
- Neon: Scales with compute size: 104 direct connections at 0.25 CU (1 GB RAM), 419 at 1 CU, 2517 at 6 CU; up to 10,000 through the pooler
- Nile: 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included.
- When idle
- Neon: Compute suspends after 5 minutes idle on Free and Launch, and can be disabled on Launch; configurable from 1 minute to always-on on Scale. The database is not deleted or paused — the next query restarts the compute.
- Nile: No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure.
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.
Neon 0
Nile 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Neon | Nile |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Entry paid plan | 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. | $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month. |
| Pricing model | 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 | Priced on queries rather than instances, with a $15 base for Pro. Nile's own framing is "Pay for queries, not for instances", and additional tokens are $0.05 per million. |
| Limits | ||
| Storage (entry plan) | No included allowance on the Launch plan; storage is metered at $0.35/GB-month. The Free plan includes 0.5 GB per project. | 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB. |
| Execution | ||
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Data | ||
| Engine | PostgreSQL | PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited. |
| Connection limit | Scales with compute size: 104 direct connections at 0.25 CU (1 GB RAM), 419 at 1 CU, 2517 at 6 CU; up to 10,000 through the pooler | 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included. |
| When idle | Compute suspends after 5 minutes idle on Free and Launch, and can be disabled on Launch; configurable from 1 minute to always-on on Scale. The database is not deleted or paused — the next query restarts the compute. | No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure. |
Where they differ.
Entry paid plan
- 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.
- Nile
- $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Neon ↗
“Launch Usage-based Typical spend: $ 15 /mo Based on: Intermittent load , 1 GB Get started”
Read 2026-09-07 · official pricing
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Pro For launching production workloads. With production SLA $ 15 / month [...] Scale For scale, more security and global presence $ 350 / month”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing model
- 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
- Nile
- Priced on queries rather than instances, with a $15 base for Pro. Nile's own framing is "Pay for queries, not for instances", and additional tokens are $0.05 per million.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Pay for queries Not for instances [...] 0.05 per million additional tokens Storage 5 GB $1.00 per additional GB”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Storage (entry plan)
- Neon
- No included allowance on the Launch plan; storage is metered at $0.35/GB-month. The Free plan includes 0.5 GB per project.
- Nile
- 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neon plans — Neon Docs ↗
“Storage 0.5 GB/project $0.35/GB-month $0.35/GB-month”
Read 2026-09-05 · official pricing
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Storage 5 GB $1.00 per additional GB SLA 99.95%”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Engine
- Neon
- PostgreSQL
- Nile
- PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“multi-tenant applications with Nile's Postgres Unlimited Databases Unlimited Tenants Pay for queries Not for instances Limitless vector embeddings”
Read 2026-09-06 · official site
Connection limit
Scales with compute size: 104 direct connections at 0.25 CU (1 GB RAM), 419 at 1 CU, 2517 at 6 CU; up to 10,000 through the pooler
10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Connection pooling — Neon Docs ↗
“Neon uses PgBouncer to provide connection pooling, enabling up to 10,000 concurrent connections. [...] In Neon, this limit is defined by max_connections, which varies by compute size: Compute size (CU) RAM max_connections 0.25 1 GB 104 0.50 2 GB 209 1 4 GB 419”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“# of connections 10,000 Connection pooling”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
When idle
- Neon
- Compute suspends after 5 minutes idle on Free and Launch, and can be disabled on Launch; configurable from 1 minute to always-on on Scale. The database is not deleted or paused — the next query restarts the compute.
- Nile
- No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Neon plans — Neon Docs ↗
“Scale to zero After 5 min After 5 min, can be disabled Configurable (1 minute to always on)”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs
- Pricing — Nile ↗
“Connection pooling Workspace sharing No cold start Provisioned Compute Coming soon”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
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
Choose Nile if…
Multi-tenant SaaS where every customer wants isolation — Nile makes a database per tenant the default shape rather than something you build on top of Postgres.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- Nile: Several of the features on its own pricing table are marked Coming soon, including branching, backups and provisioned compute, so what is bought today is narrower than the table suggests.
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: Neon or Nile?
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.
Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
Storage (entry plan): Neon or Nile?
Neon: No included allowance on the Launch plan; storage is metered at $0.35/GB-month. The Free plan includes 0.5 GB per project.
Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.
Should I choose Neon or Nile?
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.
Pick Nile if Multi-tenant SaaS where every customer wants isolation — Nile makes a database per tenant the default shape rather than something you build on top of Postgres.