Managed Postgres platforms built for modern serverless apps — instant database branching, scale-to-zero, and generous free tiers. We compare Neon, Supabase, and PlanetScale for side projects through production workloads.
3 tools · Last updated June 11, 2026
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Free plan | Open source | Why choose it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Neon | Developers building on Vercel, Cloudflare, or other serverless platforms | Freemium · from $19/mo | Pure serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branching and scale-to-zero — free tier included. | ||
| Indie developers and startups shipping fast | Freemium · from $25/mo | Postgres plus auth, storage, realtime, and auto-generated APIs in one open source platform. | |||
 PlanetScale | Companies with serious production database traffic | Paid · from $39/mo | Production-grade performance on Metal infrastructure — no free tier, built for scale. |
Neon and Supabase both have free tiers that scale to zero, so an idle side project costs nothing. Pick Neon for pure Postgres with database branching; pick Supabase if you also want auth, storage, and realtime APIs bundled in one platform.
Branching creates an instant copy-on-write copy of your database, the way git branches your code. Each pull request gets its own isolated database with production-like data, which makes schema migrations far safer to test.
Yes — PlanetScale, originally MySQL-only, now offers PlanetScale for Postgres on its Metal infrastructure. It has no free tier (plans start at $39/month), but it targets production workloads that need predictable high performance.
