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Neon vs ScaleGrid

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Neon and ScaleGrid built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 33 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

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 ScaleGrid if…

Teams that already have a favored database engine and cloud provider but want someone else operating it — the BYOC model bills infrastructure at cost and adds management on top, worth it if the operational burden is the actual problem.

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.
  • ScaleGrid: The workload fits a single-engine specialist with its own scale-to-zero or branching model — ScaleGrid's value is operating an engine you already chose, not offering a distinctive one.

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Neon alternatives · ScaleGrid alternatives

20 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Neon documentationVisit ScaleGrid documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

CriterionNeonScaleGrid
Pricing
Free tier
Yes
No
Kind of free offerFree tierFree trial
What the free plan includes100 projects with 10 branches each, plus allowances for compute and storage, at no monthly cost.A full week of access with no credit card. There is no ongoing free plan.
Credit card to startNoNo
Entry paid planNo 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.Dedicated Hosting starts at $10/month for Redis; $13/month PostgreSQL, $18/month MongoDB, $23/month MySQL, all-inclusive of machine, disk and network costs. From the Dedicated Hosting Plans doc; the live /pricing/ calculator quotes higher figures (see notes).
Pricing modelUsage-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 ScaleTwo models: Dedicated Hosting, an all-inclusive plan covering machine, disk and network cost; or Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), management-only pricing where the cloud provider is billed separately.
Startup credit programVia 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.Startup Saver: up to 50% discount on ScaleGrid hosting for 12 months. — A discount on the invoice, not a credit balance.
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.18 GB storage on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 1 GB RAM); IOPS listed as N/A. Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path.
Execution
Managed connection poolingSupportedSupported — PgBouncer for PostgreSQL, enabled at cluster creation or later, with pooling mode and pool size set by you.
Infrastructure
Regions8 AWS regions: N. Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Sydney, São Paulo. A project's region is fixed at creation and cannot be changed.AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Akamai and DigitalOcean are named as examples, not as a list; the site footer names Oracle and Zadara instead of Akamai. No region list is published.
Data
EnginePostgreSQLMySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server.
Connection limitScales 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 poolerNo platform cap published: max_connections (maximum permitted simultaneous client connections) is listed as a customer-editable MySQL server parameter in the ScaleGrid console.
When idleCompute 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.Manual pause/resume on Bring Your Own Cloud clusters: a paused cluster's nodes are stopped and its cloud VM costs stop, but ScaleGrid management costs continue and the data is unreachable until resumed. Only standard clusters using persistent storage; high-performance local-SSD clusters cannot be paused.
Database branching
Supported
Limited — Clone copies a backup's config and contents into a new, separately billed cluster, not an in-place branch.
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
PostgreSQL PITR: backups every 10 minutes by default, transaction logs retained 7 days; supported on Azure, DigitalOcean, EC2 and OCI only.
Read replicasSupportedSupported — Converting a standalone deployment to a replica set: 2 + 1 quorum or 3 nodes, in datacenter regions you pick.
Backup retention1 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.Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans.
Compliance
SOC 2Annual SOC 2 Type II audits by an accredited independent third party.SOC 2 Type II audited against the Security trust service criterion by Insight Assurance; report available on request through the Trust Center form.
HIPAA
HIPAA compliance achieved, to support customers handling protected health information (PHI).
HIPAA compliance listed under Support for ScaleGrid Enterprise (on-premises / private cloud) deployments. Stated for the Enterprise plan only; the SOC 2 trust page does not mention HIPAA.
GDPR / data residencyFollows the GDPR framework; Data Processing Agreements (DPA) offered.GDPR DPA published with EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) for EEA transfers; ScaleGrid itself is located in the United States.
PCI DSSThe 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.PCI compliance listed under Support for ScaleGrid Enterprise (on-premises / private cloud) deployments. Stated for the Enterprise plan only; no PCI DSS attestation or level is published.
Encryption at restAES-256, with key rotation policies.Optional encryption at rest for data and backups; when enabled, backups are encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines.
Role-based access control
Access to production systems is role-based, requiring SSO and continuous monitoring.
Role-Based Access Control in the ScaleGrid console: roles and permissions can be assigned to the users on a team account.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Free tier

Neon
Yes
ScaleGrid
No
Sources (2) →

Kind of free offer

Neon
Free tier
ScaleGrid
Free trial
Sources (2) →

What the free plan includes

Neon
100 projects with 10 branches each, plus allowances for compute and storage, at no monthly cost.
ScaleGrid
A full week of access with no credit card. There is no ongoing free plan.
Sources (2) →

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.
ScaleGrid
Dedicated Hosting starts at $10/month for Redis; $13/month PostgreSQL, $18/month MongoDB, $23/month MySQL, all-inclusive of machine, disk and network costs. From the Dedicated Hosting Plans doc; the live /pricing/ calculator quotes higher figures (see notes).
Sources (2) →

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
ScaleGrid
Two models: Dedicated Hosting, an all-inclusive plan covering machine, disk and network cost; or Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC), management-only pricing where the cloud provider is billed separately.
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • ScaleGrid Pricing ↗

    “Our Dedicated Hosting plans are all-inclusive and cover machine cost, as well as your disk and network costs and up to 5 free backups. The Bring Your Own Cloud plans are management-only and connect to your existing cloud account so you pay for those costs with your cloud provider.”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

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.
ScaleGrid
Startup Saver: up to 50% discount on ScaleGrid hosting for 12 months. — A discount on the invoice, not a credit balance.
Sources (2) →
  • Neon Startup Program ↗

    “Self-Funded: Early-stage, self-funded startups. Less than $1M in funding [...] Up to $1,000 in Neon credits. Venture-Backed: VC-backed startups with at least $1M in funding [...] Up to $200K in Neon and Databricks credits. Credits are valid for 12 months from the date of acceptance.”

    Read 2026-09-11 · official site · Report a correction

  • ScaleGrid Pricing ↗

    “Upto 50% Discount OVER 12 MONTHS Startup Saver Benefit from significant cost savings on our database management solutions, specifically tailored to support the dynamic needs of startups.”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

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.
ScaleGrid
18 GB storage on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 1 GB RAM); IOPS listed as N/A. Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path.
Sources (2) →

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.
ScaleGrid
AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Akamai and DigitalOcean are named as examples, not as a list; the site footer names Oracle and Zadara instead of Akamai. No region list is published.
Sources (2) →
  • Regions — Neon Docs ↗

    “Each Neon project exists in exactly one region. Your database runs in that region. You cannot change the region for an existing project. If you need your data in a different region, you create a new Neon project in that region and migrate your database there.”

    Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction

  • ScaleGrid MySQL Hosting ↗

    “offering high availability, dedicated servers, and superuser control across major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, Akamai and DigitalOcean”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official site · Report a correction

Engine

Neon
PostgreSQL
ScaleGrid
MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, RabbitMQ and SQL Server.
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • ScaleGrid Pricing ↗

    “ScaleGrid for MySQL™ ScaleGrid for PostgreSQL® ScaleGrid for MongoDB® ScaleGrid for Redis® ScaleGrid for RabbitMQ ScaleGrid for SQL Server®”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

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
ScaleGrid
No platform cap published: max_connections (maximum permitted simultaneous client connections) is listed as a customer-editable MySQL server parameter in the ScaleGrid console.
Sources (2) →

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.
ScaleGrid
Manual pause/resume on Bring Your Own Cloud clusters: a paused cluster's nodes are stopped and its cloud VM costs stop, but ScaleGrid management costs continue and the data is unreachable until resumed. Only standard clusters using persistent storage; high-performance local-SSD clusters cannot be paused.
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • New Feature for BYOC - Pausing and Resuming Clusters ↗

    “you will be able to pause a running cluster, putting it in a “Paused” state. The “Paused” state means that all cluster nodes are in a stopped state. While a cluster is “Paused” you will no longer get charged for your cloud provider’s VM costs [...] you will still get charged for the ScaleGrid management cost [...] This feature is only available on standard clusters using persistent storage”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

Database branching

Neon
Supported
ScaleGrid
Limited — Clone copies a backup's config and contents into a new, separately billed cluster, not an in-place branch.
Sources (2) →
  • Neon plans — Neon Docs ↗

    “Each Neon project is created with a root branch, like the main branch in Git. [...] You can create child branches for testing, previews, or development. [...] Free: 10 branches/project Launch: 10 branches/project Scale: 25 branches/project”

    Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction

  • PostgreSQL Backup Clone ↗

    “you can use the PostgreSQL Clone feature. This allows you to carry over the configuration of that backup along with all its contents to a new cluster. [...] Clone creates a new cluster with the same config and backup contents that you can connect to and examine the data. [...] Standard pricing rules apply for this newly created deployment”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

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

ScaleGrid

PostgreSQL PITR: backups every 10 minutes by default, transaction logs retained 7 days; supported on Azure, DigitalOcean, EC2 and OCI only.

Sources (2) →

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.
ScaleGrid
Up to five backups per deployment on ScaleGrid's dedicated hosting plans.
Sources (2) →

SOC 2

Neon
Annual SOC 2 Type II audits by an accredited independent third party.
ScaleGrid
SOC 2 Type II audited against the Security trust service criterion by Insight Assurance; report available on request through the Trust Center form.
Sources (2) →
  • Neon Security ↗

    “Neon undergoes annual SOC 2 Type II audits performed by accredited independent third party auditors.”

    Read 2026-09-12 · official site · Report a correction

  • ScaleGrid SOC 2 Type II Audited Controls ↗

    “ScaleGrid’s SOC 2 Type II audit focused on the Security trust service criterion and evaluated the effectiveness of our Security controls and operational practices over time. The audit was conducted by independent audit firm Insight Assurance. [...] Customers and prospective customers may request access to ScaleGrid’s SOC 2 Type II report and supporting security documentation through the request form on this page.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

HIPAA

Neon
HIPAA compliance achieved, to support customers handling protected health information (PHI).
ScaleGrid
HIPAA compliance listed under Support for ScaleGrid Enterprise (on-premises / private cloud) deployments. Stated for the Enterprise plan only; the SOC 2 trust page does not mention HIPAA.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Neon
Follows the GDPR framework; Data Processing Agreements (DPA) offered.
ScaleGrid
GDPR DPA published with EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Module Two) for EEA transfers; ScaleGrid itself is located in the United States.
Sources (2) →
  • Neon Security ↗

    “Neon follows the GDPR framework, ensuring user rights, data minimization, and lawful processing. We offer Data Processing Agreements (DPA) and support compliant cross-border data transfers.”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official site · Report a correction

  • Data Processing Addendum (DPA) | ScaleGrid ↗

    “ScaleGrid is located in the United States and to the extent any processing of Personal Data of Data Subjects located in the EEA by ScaleGrid takes place in any country outside the EEA (other than exclusively in an Adequate Country), there must be a lawful basis for this transfer as required by the Data Protection Legislation.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

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.
ScaleGrid
PCI compliance listed under Support for ScaleGrid Enterprise (on-premises / private cloud) deployments. Stated for the Enterprise plan only; no PCI DSS attestation or level is published.
Sources (2) →

Encryption at rest

Neon
AES-256, with key rotation policies.
ScaleGrid
Optional encryption at rest for data and backups; when enabled, backups are encrypted and can only be mounted on the database machines.
Sources (2) →

Role-based access control

Neon
Access to production systems is role-based, requiring SSO and continuous monitoring.
ScaleGrid
Role-Based Access Control in the ScaleGrid console: roles and permissions can be assigned to the users on a team account.
Sources (2) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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03.

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 — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

When the free offer endsScaleGrid: 7 days.
Egress over allowanceNeon: 5 GB per project included on Free; 500 GB per project included on Launch and Scale, then $0.10/GB
Memory (entry plan)ScaleGrid: 1 GB RAM on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 18 GB storage). Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path.
Scales to zeroNeon: Supported
Rewind in placeScaleGrid: Not supported — PITR restores via Peek at Backup or Clone into a brand new cluster; the source deployment is not rewound.
Support on entry paid planNeon: Support plans are mapped to pricing plans: community support on Free, billing support on Launch, standard support on Scale.
ISO 27001Neon: Annual ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 audits.
Customer-managed keysScaleGrid: Bring Your Own Encryption Key lets customers control the OS encryption key used for their deployments, announced in the March 2026 platform updates. Listed under Other Relevant Updates in the platform's March 2026 product-update summary.Neon: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-21 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Neon.
Private networking / VPCScaleGrid: Bring Your Own Cloud plans can use VPCs (AWS VPC, GCP VPC, OCI VCN, Azure VNET) and Security Groups; Dedicated Hosting plans cannot.Neon: not stated on its own page when read on 2026-09-21 — corrections welcome · every such claim about Neon.
Dedicated infrastructureScaleGrid: Dedicated Hosting plans run on dedicated virtual machines hosted by ScaleGrid, exclusive to a single client or business.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Neon or ScaleGrid?

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.

ScaleGrid: Dedicated Hosting starts at $10/month for Redis; $13/month PostgreSQL, $18/month MongoDB, $23/month MySQL, all-inclusive of machine, disk and network costs. From the Dedicated Hosting Plans doc; the live /pricing/ calculator quotes higher figures (see notes).

Free tier: Neon or ScaleGrid?

Neon: Yes

ScaleGrid: No

Storage (entry plan): Neon or ScaleGrid?

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.

ScaleGrid: 18 GB storage on NANO, the entry row of the pricing calculator for PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean (1 core, 1 GB RAM); IOPS listed as N/A. Calculator table; renders client-side, so the excerpt needs the render-fetch path.

Should I choose Neon or ScaleGrid?

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 ScaleGrid if Teams that already have a favored database engine and cloud provider but want someone else operating it — the BYOC model bills infrastructure at cost and adds management on top, worth it if the operational burden is the actual problem.

Provider pages

NeonServerless Postgres that separates storage from compute, with copy-on-write branching and compute that suspends when idle.ScaleGridManaged hosting for MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis and more, across six cloud providers via dedicated or bring-your-own-cloud plans.

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Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.