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Nile vs PlanetScale

SEPT 2026 audit

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

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 25 criteria comparedSources last checked

The short answer

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

Choose 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.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

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

Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Nile alternatives · PlanetScale alternatives

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

Visit Nile documentationVisit PlanetScale 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.

CriterionNilePlanetScale
Pricing
Free tier
Yes — Ongoing $0 Free plan: 50M query tokens, 1 GB storage, 500 connections, no pauses.
No — $5/month is the cheapest SKU on PlanetScale's whole price list; the document prices no free plan.
Entry paid plan
$15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
$5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month
Pricing modelPriced 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.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.
Limits
Storage (entry plan)5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.First 10 GB free on network-attached storage, then per-GB pricing; storage is included for Metal databases
Execution
Managed connection poolingSupportedSupported
Infrastructure
Regions
Two regions selectable for a new database: AWS_US_WEST_2 (AWS US West, Oregon) and AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1 (AWS Europe, Frankfurt). The separate list-available-regions endpoint enumerates a third value, AZURE_EASTUS.
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.
Data
EnginePostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited.PostgreSQL, and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters with horizontal sharding
Database branching
Not supported — Pricing marks Branching 'Coming soon': one branch Free, 50 Pro, unlimited Scale.
Supported
Backup retentionThree backups taken daily; restore is request-based through support and available on paid tiers only. No retention window is published.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.
Compliance
SOC 2
Listed on the pricing plan comparison as 'Coming soon'; the Free and Pro columns show '-' for SOC 2.
SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 + HIPAA reports, available on all plans on request via PlanetScale's Trust Center.
GDPR / data residencyRegion choice covers residency: a database can be provisioned in eu-central-1 (Frankfurt), which Nile presents as easing EU data-residency rules. From Nile's 2024-04-10 regions announcement; the live API region enum still lists AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1.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.
Encryption at rest
Stated for Nile Auth: all communication is encrypted using TLS and all stored data is encrypted at rest. Read in the Nile Auth FAQ; Nile publishes no platform-wide security page.
AES encryption at rest on the storage media serving database branches and backups.
Dedicated infrastructure
Provisioned compute is dedicated to a single Nile customer; tenants can be placed on either serverless or provisioned compute. The pricing page separately marks Provisioned Compute 'Coming soon' (upto 4 VCPU on Pro).
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.

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

Nile
Yes — Ongoing $0 Free plan: 50M query tokens, 1 GB storage, 500 connections, no pauses.
PlanetScale
No — $5/month is the cheapest SKU on PlanetScale's whole price list; the document prices no free plan.
Sources (2) →

Entry paid plan

Nile
$15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.
PlanetScale
$5/month for a single-node Postgres database on network-attached storage; PlanetScale Metal with local NVMe starts at $50/month
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • Pricing — PlanetScale ↗

    “PlanetScale Postgres [...] Single node — Starting at $5/month for development and low-traffic workloads Metal — Starting at $50/month with local NVMe storage for high-performance needs High Availability — 1 primary + 2 replicas across 3 availability zones”

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

Pricing model

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.
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.
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • Pricing — PlanetScale ↗

    “Vitess MySQL-compatible databases with horizontal sharding. Pricing based on cluster size, VTGate configuration, and storage. Metal also available. Neki Postgres databases with horizontal sharding. Pricing is based on shard size and count, router configuration, replicas, storage, backup storage, and network usage.”

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

Storage (entry plan)

Nile
5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.
PlanetScale
First 10 GB free on network-attached storage, then per-GB pricing; storage is included for Metal databases
Sources (2) →

Regions

Nile

Two regions selectable for a new database: AWS_US_WEST_2 (AWS US West, Oregon) and AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1 (AWS Europe, Frankfurt). The separate list-available-regions endpoint enumerates a third value, AZURE_EASTUS.

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.

Sources (2) →
  • Nile API reference - Create a database ↗

    “The region where the database will be hosted. Nile currently supports the following values: AWS_US_WEST_2 - AWS in US West (Oregon) AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1 - AWS in Europe (Frankfurt)”

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

  • Selecting a region — PlanetScale Docs ↗

    “Currently, the following regions are supported, with their respective PlanetScale slugs: AWS ap-northeast-1 (Tokyo) [...] AWS us-west-2 (Oregon) [...] GCP us-central1 (Council Bluffs, Iowa) [...] GCP europe-west4 (Eemshaven, Netherlands) [...] Once you select a region for your default branch, it cannot be changed directly, but you can migrate to a new region if needed.”

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

Engine

Nile
PostgreSQL, with tenant isolation as a first-class concept — databases, tenant databases and vector embeddings are all described as unlimited.
PlanetScale
PostgreSQL, and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters with horizontal sharding
Sources (2) →
  • 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 · Report a correction

  • Pricing — PlanetScale ↗

    “MySQL-compatible with horizontal sharding for massive scale. Runs on network-attached storage or PlanetScale Metal.”

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

Database branching

Nile
Not supported — Pricing marks Branching 'Coming soon': one branch Free, 50 Pro, unlimited Scale.
PlanetScale
Supported
Sources (2) →
  • Pricing | Nile Database ↗

    “Branching Coming soon One branch [...] Branching Coming soon 50 branches”

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

  • Branching — PlanetScale Docs ↗

    “PlanetScale Postgres provides two types of database branches: Development branches — Development branches run on PS-DEV instances that have limited performance capabilities, different egress rates, and no replicas. [...] Production branches — Production branches are intended for production traffic and include optional replicas for high availability.”

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

Backup retention

Nile
Three backups taken daily; restore is request-based through support and available on paid tiers only. No retention window is published.
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.
Sources (2) →
  • Backup and Restore ↗

    “This is available for paid tiers only. We hope to make this process self-serve soon. [...] We take three backups daily to ensure your data is well-protected.”

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

  • Back up and restore — PlanetScale Docs ↗

    “All PlanetScale Postgres databases include automatic scheduled backups that run every 12 hours for production and development branches. Default backups are created automatically and don't require any setup. There are no additional charges for these backups. [...] The default, included backup schedule retains backups for 2 days. You can set a custom retention period for custom backup schedules and manual one-off backups.”

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

SOC 2

Nile
Listed on the pricing plan comparison as 'Coming soon'; the Free and Pro columns show '-' for SOC 2.
PlanetScale
SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 + HIPAA reports, available on all plans on request via PlanetScale's Trust Center.
Sources (2) →

GDPR / data residency

Nile
Region choice covers residency: a database can be provisioned in eu-central-1 (Frankfurt), which Nile presents as easing EU data-residency rules. From Nile's 2024-04-10 regions announcement; the live API region enum still lists AWS_EU_CENTRAL_1.
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.
Sources (2) →
  • Introducing: SaaS Anywhere on Postgres - for Speed and Compliance ↗

    “We started with us-west-2 (Oregon) and you now have the option to also provision a database in eu-central-1 (Frankfurt). [...] There are many regions with strict data residency regulations: EU, UK, parts of Canada, Japan, Australia [...] Having databases in the relevant regions make this a lot simpler and safer.”

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

  • Security and compliance — PlanetScale Docs ↗

    “PlanetScale complies with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other global privacy regulations, where applicable. [...] If you create a database in a Europe-based region, your data does not leave the region the database was created in, unless you create a read-only region in another region.”

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

Encryption at rest

Nile
Stated for Nile Auth: all communication is encrypted using TLS and all stored data is encrypted at rest. Read in the Nile Auth FAQ; Nile publishes no platform-wide security page.
PlanetScale
AES encryption at rest on the storage media serving database branches and backups.
Sources (2) →

Dedicated infrastructure

Nile
Provisioned compute is dedicated to a single Nile customer; tenants can be placed on either serverless or provisioned compute. The pricing page separately marks Provisioned Compute 'Coming soon' (upto 4 VCPU on Pro).
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.
Sources (2) →
  • Architecture of Nile Postgres ↗

    “Serverless compute is built with true multitenancy, while provisioned compute is dedicated to a single Nile customer. [...] Tenants can be placed on either serverless or provisioned compute.”

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

  • Security and compliance — PlanetScale Docs ↗

    “PlanetScale single-tenant deployment options are deployed into a dedicated AWS Organizations member account or GCP organization owned by PlanetScale. [...] PlanetScale Managed is a single-tenant deployment of PlanetScale within your Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account.”

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

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.

Kind of free offerNile: Free tier
Egress over allowancePlanetScale: 100 GB of egress included, then $0.06/GB
Memory (entry plan)Nile: No memory figure published: serverless compute is billed in query tokens, abstract units of CPU and memory, 50 million included on the Free plan.
Connection limitNile: 10,000 connections on Pro, with connection pooling included.
When idleNile: No cold start on Pro — Nile lists it as a plan feature rather than a behaviour to configure.
Point-in-time recoveryPlanetScale: 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 replicasPlanetScale: Supported — Two replicas come with the High Availability shape, across three availability zones.
Audit logsPlanetScale: 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.
Support on entry paid planPlanetScale: 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.
HIPAAPlanetScale: 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.
PCI DSSPlanetScale: 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.
Private networking / VPCPlanetScale: AWS PrivateLink or GCP Private Service Connect on all plans; PlanetScale Managed on AWS additionally offers fully private network isolation.
04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Entry paid plan: Nile or PlanetScale?

Nile: $15/month for Pro, which carries a production SLA. Scale is $350/month.

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

Free tier: Nile or PlanetScale?

Nile: Yes — Ongoing $0 Free plan: 50M query tokens, 1 GB storage, 500 connections, no pauses.

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

Storage (entry plan): Nile or PlanetScale?

Nile: 5 GB on Pro, then $1.00 per additional GB.

PlanetScale: First 10 GB free on network-attached storage, then per-GB pricing; storage is included for Metal databases

Should I choose Nile or PlanetScale?

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.

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.

Provider pages

NilePostgres reshaped around tenants, with per-tenant databases and vector embeddings included rather than metered separately.PlanetScaleManaged Postgres and MySQL-compatible Vitess clusters, sold by node size with replicas across availability zones.

Related comparisons

Amazon Aurora vs NileAmazon RDS vs NileAmazon RDS vs PlanetScaleNeon vs NileNeon vs PlanetScaleNile vs ScaleGridNile vs TigerDataNile vs Turso

Comments

Every page here is sourced and dated.