Neon

Neon

Freemium

Serverless Postgres with branching and scale-to-zero.

Databases
Serverless OLTP

Published 27 September 2026

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Scores

Popularity4/5

A leading name in serverless Postgres with strong adoption in the Vercel and Next.js communities, and increased visibility following the Databricks acquisition.

Learning Curve2/5

For anyone who knows Postgres there is almost nothing new to learn, since it is the same SQL, drivers, and extensions. Branching and scale-to-zero are the only additional concepts.

Flexibility4/5

Full Postgres with extension support covers a wide range of workloads, and separated compute plus branching add deployment options a plain managed instance lacks, within the bounds of the Postgres feature set.

Performance4/5

Autoscaling and modern storage give solid throughput for typical web workloads, and scale-to-zero saves cost, though the first query after idle pays a cold-start penalty.

Portability5/5

Because it is standard PostgreSQL, a logical dump restores onto any Postgres host, so there is minimal engine lock-in and skills transfer completely.

About Neon

Neon is serverless PostgreSQL. The engine is standard Postgres, so existing drivers, extensions, and SQL work unchanged, but Neon re-architects how it runs: compute is separated from storage, which lets the database scale compute up and down with load and scale to zero when idle so you only pay for what you actually use. This is the defining difference from a self-hosted or traditionally managed Postgres instance, where a server runs continuously whether or not it is serving queries.

Its standout feature is database branching. A branch is a copy-on-write snapshot of your data created in seconds without duplicating storage, so each preview deployment, test run, or developer can get an isolated full-fidelity copy of production data. Point-in-time restore, instant provisioning, and read replicas build on the same storage design.

Neon fits naturally into modern full-stack workflows and is a common database choice for apps deployed on Vercel and built with Next.js, pairing with ORMs such as Prisma and Drizzle over a standard connection string or a serverless HTTP driver. It was acquired by Databricks in 2025 and continues to run as a standalone product. A no-credit-card free plan is available, with usage-based paid plans billed on compute and storage.

Key Features

  • Standard PostgreSQL with full extension and driver compatibility
  • Separated storage and compute with scale-to-zero
  • Git-style database branching with copy-on-write
  • Instant point-in-time restore
  • Serverless HTTP driver for edge and serverless functions
  • Autoscaling compute billed by the second

Pros

  • Real Postgres, so migration in and out is straightforward
  • Branching makes preview and test environments trivial
  • Scale-to-zero keeps idle and hobby projects cheap
  • Generous free tier with no credit card required

Cons

  • Scale-to-zero introduces cold-start latency on the first query
  • Usage-based billing can be hard to predict under spiky load
  • Connection handling needs care in serverless environments
  • Advanced features concentrate on the higher paid plans

Neon Pricing

Freemium
FreeFree
  • · No credit card required
  • · Included compute allowance (around 100 CU-hours/month) and storage
  • · Up to 10 branches per project
  • · Scale-to-zero on idle
Launch$19/monthly
  • · Higher included compute and storage
  • · Compute billed around $0.106 per CU-hour beyond the allowance
  • · Storage around $0.35 per GB-month
  • · Autoscaling and read replicas
Scale$69/monthly
  • · For production workloads with higher limits
  • · Compute billed around $0.222 per CU-hour beyond the allowance
  • · SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA eligibility
  • · More branches, larger compute ceilings

Tech Stacks with Neon

React + Django

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React
React

Frontend

Django
Django

Backend

Python
Python
JavaScript
JavaScript

Programming

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Neon

Databases

Railway
Railway

Hosting

Details Sandbox
Database:
Deploy on:
Authentication add-on:
CI/CD add-on:
Containerization add-on:
Observability add-on:
Email add-on:
Payments add-on:
Styling add-on:
Analytics add-on:

Vue + FastAPI

Project

Vue.js frontend paired with FastAPI, a fast, async-ready Python API backend.

Vue.js
Vue.js

Frontend

FastAPI
FastAPI

Backend

Python
Python
TypeScript
TypeScript

Programming

Neon
Neon

Databases

Railway
Railway

Hosting

Details Sandbox
Database:
Deploy on:
Authentication add-on:
CI/CD add-on:
Containerization add-on:
Observability add-on:
Email add-on:
Payments add-on:
Styling add-on:
Analytics add-on:

n8n + PostgreSQL

Project

Workflow automation with n8n reading and writing data to a PostgreSQL database, self-hosted or serverless on Neon.

Neon
Neon

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n8n
n8n

Automation

Details Sandbox
Database:

Tools Related to Neon

Integrates with Neon(2)

Prisma ORM

Prisma ORM

The most widely used TypeScript ORM for Node.js. Schema-first modelling, auto-generated migrations, and a fully type-safe query client.

Open Source
Databases
4/5

Prisma ships a serverless driver adapter for Neon, connecting over Neon's HTTP driver in edge and serverless runtimes.

Drizzle

Drizzle

A lightweight, SQL-first TypeScript ORM. You write queries that read like SQL, with full type inference and zero runtime dependencies.

Open Source
Databases
4/5

Drizzle integrates with Neon's serverless driver for querying Postgres from edge functions.

Alternatives to Neon(3)

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a free, open-source object-relational database known for reliability, standards compliance, and extensibility, with rich data types, JSONB, and a large ecosystem of extensions such as PostGIS and pgvector.

Open Source
Databases
4/5

Neon is serverless PostgreSQL — the same engine as standard Postgres, but with scale-to-zero and branching instead of a continuously running instance.

Prisma Postgres

Prisma Postgres

A managed serverless PostgreSQL database from the makers of Prisma, billed by operation and storage rather than instance size, with a free plan and built-in connection pooling.

Freemium
Databases
3/5

Both are serverless PostgreSQL services; Neon bills on compute and storage while Prisma Postgres bills per operation. Usually you pick one.

PlanetScale

PlanetScale

A serverless database platform built on Vitess, the technology that scales MySQL at YouTube. Known for horizontal scaling and a branch-and-deploy schema workflow.

Paid
Databases
3/5

Neon is serverless Postgres that scales to zero and has a free plan; PlanetScale runs always-on MySQL (Vitess) and Postgres clusters with no free tier, aimed at high-throughput production workloads.

Learning Resources

No resources yet — check back soon.

Links

Website Docs GitHub

Vendor

Neon

Tags

SQLFree TierServerlessAuto-scalingACID Compliant

Details

Maintained
Yes
DB model
Relational
Query language
SQL
Hosting
Cloud managed
ACID compliant
Yes
Replication
Yes
GitHub stars
23.1k
Stars updated
2026-09-23