whichdb
vs

Neon vs Xata

Neon: Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks. Xata: Open-source Postgres platform with storage-level copy-on-write branching, scale-to-zero and anonymized clones.

key differences

  • Only Neon has compression, time travel.
  • Only Xata has online schema changes.

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 xata for

  • +Branch-per-pull-request preview databases with production-like data
  • +Safe environments for AI coding agents
  • +Testing migrations against anonymized production clones
  • +Postgres in your own cloud account with branching

best at · OLTP, Vector search, Content

NeonServerless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks.
XataOpen-source Postgres platform with storage-level copy-on-write branching, scale-to-zero and anonymized clones.
overview
Primary model
Relational
Relational
Also supports
Document, Vector, Spatial
Document, Vector
Type
Managed service
Managed service
Status
Active
Active
Developer
Databricks (Neon)
Xata
First release
2022
2022
Latest version
–
–
License
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0 (storage engine)
Open source (permissive)Apache License 2.0 (open-source platform)
Free tier
✓
—
popularity
WhichDB Score
30.4
7.4
Rank
#86
#345
GitHub stars
23.3K
1.1K
Stack Overflow questions
5
4
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Horizontal scaling
None
None
Multi-region
None
None
ACID
Full
Full
Consistency
Strong
Strong
Schema
Strict
Strict
Architecture
Serverless, Shared storage, Primary replica
Primary replica, Serverless
deployment
Self-hosted
—
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
✓
Serverless
✓
✓
Embedded
—
—
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Azure, Vercel
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Hetzner
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, Python, Go, Java, Ruby, Rust
Best for
OLTP, Vector search, RAG, Content
OLTP, Vector search, Content
Add more to this comparisonNot sure either fits? Try smart match

Neon vs Xata: FAQ

What is the difference between Neon and Xata?

Neon: Serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero, now part of Databricks. Xata: Open-source Postgres platform with storage-level copy-on-write branching, scale-to-zero and anonymized clones. Only Neon has compression, time travel. Only Xata has online schema changes.

When should I choose Neon over Xata?

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 Xata for branch-per-pull-request preview databases with production-like data, safe environments for AI coding agents and testing migrations against anonymized production clones.

Is Neon or Xata more popular?

Neon ranks #86 on the WhichDB Score (30.4/100) and Xata ranks #345 (7.4/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Neon and Xata open source?

Yes. Neon is open source. License: Apache License 2.0 (storage engine). Yes. Xata is open source. License: Apache License 2.0 (open-source platform).