whichdb
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Neon vs PlanetScale

Neon: Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks. PlanetScale: Performance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching.

key differences

  • Licensing: Neon is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0 (storage engine)); PlanetScale is proprietary (Proprietary (managed service; Vitess is Apache-2.0)).
  • PlanetScale is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Neon (≤ 10 TB).
  • Horizontal scaling is none in Neon and native in PlanetScale.
  • Only Neon has geospatial, pub/sub, time travel.
  • Only PlanetScale has online schema changes.
  • Neon has a serverless option; PlanetScale 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 planetscale for

  • +High-traffic SaaS backends sensitive to tail latency
  • +Teams that want safe, reviewable schema changes in CI
  • +Outgrowing a single MySQL primary
  • +Migrating from RDS/Aurora to faster NVMe-backed Postgres

best at · OLTP, Content, Metadata

NeonServerless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks.
PlanetScalePerformance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Document, Vector, Spatial
Document, Vector
Type
Managed service
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Databricks (Neon)
PlanetScale, Inc.
First release
2022
2021
Latest version
–
–
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0 (storage engine)
ProprietaryProprietary (managed service; Vitess is Apache-2.0)
Free tier
✓
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
30.4
25.7
Rank
#86
#118
GitHub stars
23.3K
671
Stack Overflow questions
5
60
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Massive (Multi-PB)
Horizontal scaling
None
Native
Multi-region
None
Read replicas
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong, Eventual
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Serverless, Shared storage, Primary replica
Primary replica, Distributed
deployment
Self-hosted
—
—
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
—
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Azure, Vercel
AWS, Google Cloud
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#
JavaScript, Go, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, Rust
Best for
OLTP, Vector search, RAG, Content
OLTP, Content, Metadata, Vector search
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Neon vs PlanetScale: FAQ

What is the difference between Neon and PlanetScale?

Neon: Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks. PlanetScale: Performance-focused managed MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres, with NVMe-backed Metal clusters and branching. Licensing: Neon is open source (permissive) (Apache License 2.0 (storage engine)); PlanetScale is proprietary (Proprietary (managed service; Vitess is Apache-2.0)). PlanetScale is built for larger datasets (Multi-PB) than Neon (≤ 10 TB). Horizontal scaling is none in Neon and native in PlanetScale.

When should I choose Neon over PlanetScale?

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 PlanetScale for high-traffic SaaS backends sensitive to tail latency; teams that want safe, reviewable schema changes in CI; and outgrowing a single MySQL primary.

Is Neon or PlanetScale more popular?

Neon ranks #86 on the WhichDB Score (30.4/100) and PlanetScale ranks #118 (25.7/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Neon and PlanetScale open source?

Yes. Neon is open source. License: Apache License 2.0 (storage engine). No. PlanetScale is proprietary, closed-source software.