# Neon vs PlanetScale

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/neon-vs-planetscale/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Neon | PlanetScale |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | No — $5/month is the cheapest SKU on PlanetScale's whole price list; the document prices no free plan. |
| 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. | $5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/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 by cluster shape rather than per query, and on two different bases: Vitess by cluster size, VTGate configuration and storage; Neki by shard size and count, router configuration, replicas, storage, backup storage and network usage. |
| Egress over allowance | 5 GB per project included on Free; 500 GB per project included on Launch and Scale, then $0.10/GB | 100 GB of egress included, then $0.06/GB |
| 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. | First 10 GB free on network-attached storage, then per-GB pricing; storage is included for Metal databases |
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Regions | 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. | 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. |
| Engine | PostgreSQL | PostgreSQL, and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters with horizontal sharding |
| Database branching | Supported | Supported |
| Point-in-time recovery | History window of 6 hours up to 1 GB-month on Free, up to 7 days on Launch, up to 30 days on Scale | 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 — Two replicas come with the High Availability shape, across three availability zones. |
| Backup 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. | 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. |
| Support on entry paid plan | Support plans are mapped to pricing plans: community support on Free, billing support on Launch, standard support on Scale. | Enterprise lists Slack-based support with a private shared channel, and business support with enhanced response times from support engineers. The self-serve plans have no support level named on the page. |
| SOC 2 | Annual SOC 2 Type II audits by an accredited independent third party. | SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 + HIPAA reports, available on all plans on request via PlanetScale's Trust Center. |
| HIPAA | HIPAA compliance achieved, to support customers handling protected health information (PHI). | HIPAA-eligible via a Business Associate Agreement for qualifying customers; PlanetScale notes HHS does not recognize a formal HIPAA certification, so compliance is a shared responsibility rather than a badge. |
| GDPR / data residency | Follows the GDPR framework; Data Processing Agreements (DPA) offered. | Complies with GDPR; data locality follows the AWS/GCP region a database is created in, and EU-region databases keep data in-region unless a read-only replica is added elsewhere. |
| PCI DSS | The page attributes PCI-DSS to the AWS and Azure infrastructure Neon runs on. Neon's own compliance list on the same page names CCPA, GDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2 and HIPAA, and not PCI DSS. | PlanetScale Managed — the single-tenant product deployed into the customer's own AWS/GCP account — holds a PCI DSS 4.0 Attestation of Compliance as a Level 1 Service Provider. Not documented for the shared multi-tenant product. |
| Encryption at rest | AES-256, with key rotation policies. | AES encryption at rest on the storage media serving database branches and backups. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Neon: Yes ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/plans))
- PlanetScale: No — $5/month is the cheapest SKU on PlanetScale's whole price list; the document prices no free plan. ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing.md))
- Lean: 78% Neon / 22% PlanetScale — whether it is offered at all. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### 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. ([source](https://neon.com/pricing))
- PlanetScale: $5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### 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 ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/plans))
- PlanetScale: Priced by cluster shape rather than per query, and on two different bases: Vitess by cluster size, VTGate configuration and storage; Neki by shard size and count, router configuration, replicas, storage, backup storage and network usage. ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Egress over allowance

- Neon: 5 GB per project included on Free; 500 GB per project included on Launch and Scale, then $0.10/GB ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/plans))
- PlanetScale: 100 GB of egress included, then $0.06/GB ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing))
- Lean: 38% Neon / 62% PlanetScale — inversely proportional to the documented price. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### 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. ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/plans))
- PlanetScale: First 10 GB free on network-attached storage, then per-GB pricing; storage is included for Metal databases ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Regions

- 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. ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/regions))
- 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. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/plans/regions))
- Lean: 30% Neon / 70% PlanetScale — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Engine

- Neon: PostgreSQL ([source](https://neon.com/docs/connect/connection-pooling))
- PlanetScale: PostgreSQL, and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters with horizontal sharding ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Point-in-time recovery

- 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 ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/plans))
- PlanetScale: 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. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/postgres/backups))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Backup 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. ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/point-in-time-restore))
- PlanetScale: 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. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/postgres/backups))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Support on entry paid plan

- Neon: Support plans are mapped to pricing plans: community support on Free, billing support on Launch, standard support on Scale. ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/support))
- PlanetScale: Enterprise lists Slack-based support with a private shared channel, and business support with enhanced response times from support engineers. The self-serve plans have no support level named on the page. ([source](https://planetscale.com/pricing))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### SOC 2

- Neon: Annual SOC 2 Type II audits by an accredited independent third party. ([source](https://neon.com/security))
- PlanetScale: SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 + HIPAA reports, available on all plans on request via PlanetScale's Trust Center. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/security))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### HIPAA

- Neon: HIPAA compliance achieved, to support customers handling protected health information (PHI). ([source](https://neon.com/security))
- PlanetScale: HIPAA-eligible via a Business Associate Agreement for qualifying customers; PlanetScale notes HHS does not recognize a formal HIPAA certification, so compliance is a shared responsibility rather than a badge. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/security))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### GDPR / data residency

- Neon: Follows the GDPR framework; Data Processing Agreements (DPA) offered. ([source](https://neon.com/security))
- PlanetScale: Complies with GDPR; data locality follows the AWS/GCP region a database is created in, and EU-region databases keep data in-region unless a read-only replica is added elsewhere. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/security))
- Lean: 36% Neon / 64% PlanetScale — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### PCI DSS

- Neon: The page attributes PCI-DSS to the AWS and Azure infrastructure Neon runs on. Neon's own compliance list on the same page names CCPA, GDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2 and HIPAA, and not PCI DSS. ([source](https://neon.com/security))
- PlanetScale: PlanetScale Managed — the single-tenant product deployed into the customer's own AWS/GCP account — holds a PCI DSS 4.0 Attestation of Compliance as a Level 1 Service Provider. Not documented for the shared multi-tenant product. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/security))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Encryption at rest

- Neon: AES-256, with key rotation policies. ([source](https://neon.com/security))
- PlanetScale: AES encryption at rest on the storage media serving database branches and backups. ([source](https://planetscale.com/docs/security))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

## Which should you choose?

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 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.

Consider something else: 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.

Consider something else: PlanetScale — You are prototyping. Pricing starts at a node rather than at zero, and there is no free tier documented on the pricing page.

## Documented by only one

One side documents these and the other does not. An absence is a missing source, not a stated "no" — except where a line says the other page was READ on a date and does not mention it, which is a sourced observation and the only one-sided case this site leans on.

- Kind of free offer: Neon: Free tier
- What the free plan includes: Neon: 100 projects with 10 branches each, plus allowances for compute and storage, at no monthly cost.
- Credit card to start: Neon: No
- Startup credit program: 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.
- Scales to zero: Neon: Supported
- 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
- 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.
- Audit logs: PlanetScale: In addition to the audit log feature available to all PlanetScale plans, Enterprise plans can use our EventBridge configuration to send logs to your AWS account.
  - Neon: not stated on https://neon.com/security, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 22% Neon / 78% PlanetScale — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).
- ISO 27001: Neon: Annual ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 audits.
  - PlanetScale: not stated on https://planetscale.com/docs/security, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 78% Neon / 22% PlanetScale — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).
- Role-based access control: Neon: Access to production systems is role-based, requiring SSO and continuous monitoring.
- Private networking / VPC: PlanetScale: AWS PrivateLink or GCP Private Service Connect on all plans; PlanetScale Managed on AWS additionally offers fully private network isolation.
  - Neon: not stated on https://neon.com/security, read 2026-09-21. Corrections: https://inetgeek.com/contact/
  - Lean: 22% Neon / 78% PlanetScale — documented, against a vendor page that does not state it (checked 2026-09-21).
- Dedicated infrastructure: PlanetScale: Two single-tenant options: Enterprise single-tenant, deployed into an AWS/GCP account owned by PlanetScale, or PlanetScale Managed, deployed inside the customer's own AWS or GCP account.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Neon or PlanetScale?**

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.
PlanetScale: $5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month

**Free tier: Neon or PlanetScale?**

Neon: Yes
PlanetScale: No — $5/month is the cheapest SKU on PlanetScale's whole price list; the document prices no free plan.

**Egress over allowance: Neon or PlanetScale?**

Neon: 5 GB per project included on Free; 500 GB per project included on Launch and Scale, then $0.10/GB
PlanetScale: 100 GB of egress included, then $0.06/GB

**Should I choose Neon or PlanetScale?**

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 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.