Neon vs Prisma Postgres
A comparison of Neon and Prisma Postgres 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 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.
7 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.
- Prisma Postgres: $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- Prisma Postgres: 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond.
- Engine
- Neon: PostgreSQL
- Prisma Postgres: PostgreSQL.
- 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
- Prisma Postgres: 100 pooled connections on Starter and 10 direct; 10 pooled on Free, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Business.
- 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.
- Prisma Postgres: Scales to zero when idle, and Prisma states an idle app costs nothing.
- 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.
- Prisma Postgres: Daily backups with 7-day retention on Starter and Pro, 30 days on Business. The free plan has none.
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
Prisma Postgres 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Neon | Prisma Postgres |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| 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. |
| 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. | 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond. |
| Execution | ||
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Data | ||
| 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.
- Prisma Postgres
- $10/month for Starter. Pro is $49 and Business $129, each including a larger request allowance.
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 — Prisma ↗
“Starter $10 / month Prisma Compute 5M requests / month, then $1 per million [...] Pro $49 / month [...] Business $129 / 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
- 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.
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 — Prisma ↗
“5M requests / month, then $1 per million $0.006 per GB-hour memory $0.064 per active vCPU-hours $0.025 per GB outbound bandwidth”
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.
- Prisma Postgres
- 500 MB on the free plan across 50 databases. Paid plans raise the database count to 1,000 and beyond.
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 — Prisma ↗
“500 MB storage 50 databases [...] 1,000 databases 7-day daily backups”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Engine
- Neon
- PostgreSQL
- Prisma Postgres
- PostgreSQL.
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 — Prisma ↗
“Prisma Postgres [...] Managed connection pool Connection limit (pooled)”
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
100 pooled connections on Starter and 10 direct; 10 pooled on Free, 500 on Pro and 1,000 on Business.
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 — Prisma ↗
“Managed connection pool Connection limit (pooled) Free 10 Starter 100 Pro 500 Business 1,000 Connection limit (direct) Free 10 Starter 10 Pro 50 Business 100”
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.
- Prisma Postgres
- Scales to zero when idle, and Prisma states an idle app costs nothing.
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 — Prisma ↗
“Scale to zero when idle [...] An idle app scales to zero and costs nothing.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Point-in-time restore — Neon Docs ↗
“Neon retains a history of changes for your branches, with defaults of 6 hours on Free plan and 1 day on paid plans. [...] You can configure it up to 7 days on Launch or 30 days on Scale plans.”
Read 2026-09-07 · official docs
- Pricing — Prisma ↗
“Backups Free — Starter Daily, 7-day retention Pro Daily, 7-day retention Business Daily, 30-day retention”
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 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.
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.
- 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.
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 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.