whichdb
vs

Neon vs OrioleDB

Neon: Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks. OrioleDB: Cloud-native storage engine for PostgreSQL with undo logs, no VACUUM bloat and row-level WAL.

key differences

  • Only Neon has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, change data capture, materialized views.
  • Neon has a serverless option; OrioleDB does not.

choose neon for

  • +Per-pull-request preview databases
  • +AI app builders and agents provisioning databases on demand
  • +SaaS with many small, mostly idle tenant databases
  • +Serverless and edge apps on Vercel or Cloudflare

best at · OLTP, Vector search, RAG

choose orioledb for

  • +Write-heavy Postgres OLTP suffering from bloat
  • +Evaluating next-generation Postgres storage on Supabase
  • +High-concurrency workloads on large multi-core servers

best at · OLTP

NeonServerless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks.
OrioleDBCloud-native storage engine for PostgreSQL with undo logs, no VACUUM bloat and row-level WAL.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Document, Vector, Spatial
–
Type
Managed service
Extension
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Databricks (Neon)
Supabase (OrioleDB team)
First release
2022
2021
Latest version
–
beta19 (Oct 1, 2026)
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0 (storage engine)
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
30.4
11.1
Rank
#86
#287
GitHub stars
23.3K
4.3K
Stack Overflow questions
5
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Horizontal scaling
None
None
Multi-region
None
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Serverless, Shared storage, Primary replica
Single node, Primary replica, Shared storage
deployment
Self-hosted
—
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Azure, Vercel
–
capabilities
Transactions
✓
✓
Joins
✓
✓
Secondary indexes
✓
✓
Full-text search
✓
—
Vector search
✓
—
Geospatial
✓
—
JSON
✓
✓
Change data capture
✓
—
Triggers
✓
✓
Stored procedures
✓
✓
Materialized views
✓
—
TTL / expiry
—
—
Pub/Sub
✓
—
Columnar storage
—
—
In-memory
—
—
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
✓
✓
Encryption at rest
✓
—
Role-based access
✓
✓
Time travel
✓
—
Branching
✓
—
Online schema changes
—
—
Streaming ingest
—
—
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
SQL, PL/pgSQL
SQL, PL/pgSQL
Client languages
JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, Rust, Ruby, PHP, C#
C, Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, Rust
Best for
OLTP, Vector search, RAG, Content
OLTP
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Neon vs OrioleDB: FAQ

What is the difference between Neon and OrioleDB?

Neon: Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks. OrioleDB: Cloud-native storage engine for PostgreSQL with undo logs, no VACUUM bloat and row-level WAL. Only Neon has full-text search, vector search, geospatial, change data capture, materialized views. Neon has a serverless option; OrioleDB does not.

When should I choose Neon over OrioleDB?

Choose Neon for per-pull-request preview databases; AI app builders and agents provisioning databases on demand; and SaaS with many small, mostly idle tenant databases. Choose OrioleDB for write-heavy Postgres OLTP suffering from bloat, evaluating next-generation Postgres storage on Supabase and high-concurrency workloads on large multi-core servers.

Is Neon or OrioleDB more popular?

Neon ranks #86 on the WhichDB Score (30.4/100) and OrioleDB ranks #287 (11.1/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Neon and OrioleDB open source?

Yes. Neon is open source. License: Apache License 2.0 (storage engine). Yes. OrioleDB is open source. License: Apache License 2.0.