# Neon vs Prisma Postgres

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

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Neon | Prisma Postgres |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| 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. | $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance. |
| 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 | 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. |
| 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. | 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond. |
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Engine | PostgreSQL | PostgreSQL. |
| 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 | 100 pooled connections on Starter and 10 direct; 10 pooled on Free, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Business. |
| 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. | Scales to zero when idle, and Prisma states an idle app costs nothing. |
| 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. | 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

- 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))
- 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

- 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))
- 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))

### 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))
- Prisma Postgres: 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

### Engine

- Neon: PostgreSQL ([source](https://neon.com/docs/connect/connection-pooling))
- Prisma Postgres: PostgreSQL. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

### 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 ([source](https://neon.com/docs/connect/connection-pooling))
- Prisma Postgres: 100 pooled connections on Starter and 10 direct; 10 pooled on Free, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Business. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/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. ([source](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/plans))
- Prisma Postgres: Scales to zero when idle, and Prisma states an idle app costs nothing. ([source](https://www.prisma.io/pricing))

### 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))
- 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 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 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: 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: 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

- Egress over allowance: Neon: 5 GB per project included on Free; 500 GB per project included on Launch and Scale, then $0.10/GB
- Scales to zero: Neon: Supported
- 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.
- Database branching: Neon: Supported
- 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
- Read replicas: Neon: Supported

## Questions this comparison answers

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

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

**Storage (entry plan): Neon or Prisma Postgres?**

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.
Prisma Postgres: 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond.

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

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 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.