neon-vs-planetscale.html

Neon vs PlanetScale — which database wins for your brief, in 2026

Two serverless databases, side by side. Neon is serverless postgres with branching, scale-to-zero, and a deep separation of compute and storage. PlanetScale is mysql-compatible serverless db built on vitess. reintroduced free tier in 2024 after a controversial removal. The verdict, the criteria, and the honest take below.

ALL DB COMPARISONS →

Verdict in one paragraph

Postgres vs MySQL serverless. Neon wins on Postgres ergonomics, branching, scale-to-zero, and the ability to use foreign keys. PlanetScale wins on Vitess sharding for genuine horizontal scale. For greenfield projects in 2026, Neon is the default. For existing MySQL deployments needing serverless scale, PlanetScale is the right pick.

Score across the criteria: Neon 5 · PlanetScale 1

Side by side

Neon
PlanetScale
Category
Postgres
MySQL
Engine
Postgres
MySQL
Pricing
Freemium
Paid
License
Apache-2.0
Proprietary
Created
2021
2018
GitHub stars
16.8k
closed
Postgres
Yes
No
Edge-ready
No
No

Decision criteria

  • Which has better SQL ergonomics?

    Neon

    Postgres is genuinely the more advanced SQL dialect — JSONB, generated columns, window functions, CTEs. PlanetScale is constrained by Vitess.

  • Which supports foreign keys?

    Neon

    Neon supports FK constraints natively. PlanetScale's Vitess does not (architectural constraint of horizontal sharding).

  • Which scales horizontally further?

    PlanetScale

    Vitess is designed for horizontal sharding at YouTube-scale. Neon does not yet match that ceiling.

  • Which has the better branching story?

    Neon

    Neon branches in seconds and includes data. PlanetScale schema branching is workflow-only.

  • Which has had a more stable trajectory?

    Neon

    PlanetScale's 2024 free-tier removal and partial reintroduction created uncertainty. Neon has shipped feature work consistently.

  • Which is the right pick for new projects?

    Neon

    Most new projects do not need horizontal MySQL sharding. Postgres serverless is the cleaner default.

What Neon is best for

  • Apps that want pure Postgres without the platform layer above
  • Teams using preview-environment database branching as a workflow primitive
  • Variable-traffic workloads that benefit from scale-to-zero
  • Apps already on Vercel that want the integrated database

Read the full Neon entry: /serverless-databases/neon/

What PlanetScale is best for

  • MySQL-compatible workloads needing horizontal scale
  • Teams used to Vitess sharding patterns
  • Apps with schema migrations as a deployment primitive

Read the full PlanetScale entry: /serverless-databases/planetscale/

The database choice is the easy half — your migration is the hard one

The hard half is migrating your existing data without losing rows, designing a schema your future-self will not curse, and getting realtime / vector / multi-region right when those matter. The 30-min call is where you describe your stack, your scale, your data shape; I tell you whether Neon or PlanetScale (or something else) is your fit.