supabase-vs-planetscale.html

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

Two serverless databases, side by side. Supabase is postgres-based platform: database, auth, storage, edge functions, realtime, vectors. open source. 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.

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Verdict in one paragraph

Different shapes entirely. Supabase is a Postgres-based platform with auth + storage + functions bundled. PlanetScale is a serverless MySQL database. For greenfield apps that want full-stack platform, Supabase. For MySQL-shaped workloads needing Vitess-grade scale, PlanetScale. The actual head-to-head is rare; teams usually decide on Postgres-vs-MySQL first.

Score across the criteria: Supabase 4 · PlanetScale 1

Side by side

Supabase
PlanetScale
Category
Postgres
MySQL
Engine
Postgres
MySQL
Pricing
Freemium
Paid
License
Apache-2.0
Proprietary
Created
2020
2018
GitHub stars
86.4k
closed
Postgres
Yes
No
Edge-ready
No
No

Decision criteria

  • Which is better as a full-stack platform?

    Supabase

    Supabase bundles database + auth + storage + functions. PlanetScale is database-only.

  • Which has horizontal scale at YouTube grade?

    PlanetScale

    PlanetScale's Vitess sharding can scale beyond what Supabase Postgres handles before vertical scaling becomes the constraint.

  • Which has the better SQL dialect?

    Supabase

    Postgres is more advanced than MySQL in nearly every dimension that matters for app development.

  • Which has the better realtime story?

    Supabase

    Supabase Realtime is native. PlanetScale does not bundle realtime.

  • Which has the bigger free tier?

    Supabase

    Supabase free tier is generous and stable. PlanetScale's pricing has been turbulent.

What Supabase is best for

  • Full-stack apps that need database + auth + storage + functions in one platform
  • Postgres + RLS workloads where row-level security is the primary access control
  • Vector search + RAG apps using pgvector inside the same database
  • Migrating off Firebase to a Postgres-shape data model

Read the full Supabase entry: /serverless-databases/supabase/

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 Supabase or PlanetScale (or something else) is your fit.