Supabase vs Neon vs PlanetScale

TL;DR

Supabase for solo founders and small teams — you get PostgreSQL, auth, storage, and edge functions in one dashboard. Neon for teams that want pure serverless PostgreSQL with branching and minimal lock-in. PlanetScale for MySQL teams that need horizontal scaling. If you're starting fresh: Supabase or Neon, full stop.

Quick Comparison

Feature	Supabase	Neon	PlanetScale
Database	PostgreSQL	PostgreSQL	MySQL (Vitess)
Free tier	500MB + 50k rows	0.5GB storage	Scaled back (hobby $0)
Paid starts at	$25/mo	$19/mo	$39/mo
Branching	✅ (schema-level)	✅ (git-like)	✅ (best-in-class)
Auth built-in	✅	❌	❌
Storage built-in	✅	❌	❌
Edge/serverless	✅ Edge Functions	✅ Serverless	✅
Row-level security	✅ Built-in RLS	Postgres RLS	❌ (not Postgres)
Realtime	✅ Built-in	❌	❌
Lock-in	Medium (ecosystem)	Low (pure Postgres)	Medium (MySQL+Vitess)

Supabase: The Full-Stack Postgres Platform

Supabase isn't just a database — it's auth, storage, edge functions, realtime, and database in one. The free tier is generous enough for side projects.

// Supabase client — one client for everything
import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js';

const supabase = createClient(
  process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL!,
  process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY!
);

// Auth
const { data: { user } } = await supabase.auth.signInWithOAuth({ provider: 'github' });

// Database query with RLS automatically enforced
const { data: posts } = await supabase
  .from('posts')
  .select('*, author(*)')
  .eq('published', true)
  .order('created_at', { ascending: false });

// File upload
const { data } = await supabase.storage
  .from('avatars')
  .upload(`${user.id}/avatar.png`, file);

// Realtime subscription
supabase
  .channel('posts')
  .on('postgres_changes', { event: 'INSERT', schema: 'public', table: 'posts' }, (payload) => {
    console.log('New post:', payload.new);
  })
  .subscribe();

When Supabase Wins

• Solo founders and small teams who want one dashboard for everything
• Apps that need auth + database + storage tightly integrated
• Products that use Supabase's Row Level Security for multi-tenancy
• Teams coming from Firebase who want PostgreSQL power
• Projects where speed of development > infrastructure control

Supabase Limitations

• Free tier projects pause after 1 week of inactivity (not ideal for demos)
• Supabase ecosystem lock-in — if you use Supabase Auth + RLS + Realtime, migrating is painful
• Less control over PostgreSQL configuration vs raw Neon
• Edge Functions are Deno (not Node.js) — some npm packages don't work

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Neon: Pure Serverless PostgreSQL

Neon focuses on one thing: serverless PostgreSQL with git-like branching. No auth, no storage, no extras. Just Postgres.

// Neon with Drizzle — no vendor lock-in in query code
import { drizzle } from 'drizzle-orm/neon-http';
import { neon } from '@neondatabase/serverless';

const sql = neon(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);
const db = drizzle(sql);

// Standard Drizzle/Prisma queries — database-agnostic
const users = await db.select().from(usersTable).where(eq(usersTable.active, true));

Neon Branching in Practice

Neon's killer feature: instant database branches. Every feature branch can have its own database state.

# Create a branch for a feature — instant, copy-on-write
neon branches create --name feature/new-billing-model --parent main

# Run migrations on branch without touching production
DATABASE_URL=$(neon connection-string feature/new-billing-model)
npx prisma migrate deploy

# Test in CI against the branch
# Merge PR → merge database branch → deploy to production

This is genuinely transformative for teams with complex migrations. No more "staging database is out of sync with production."

When Neon Wins

• Teams who want pure PostgreSQL with no lock-in
• Projects already using separate auth (Clerk, Auth.js) and storage (Cloudflare R2)
• Migration-heavy development where database branching pays off
• Edge-deployed apps (Neon's serverless driver works in Cloudflare Workers, Vercel Edge)
• Developers who want to self-host later — Neon is standard Postgres

Neon Limitations

• No auth, storage, or realtime built-in — you assemble these separately
• Free tier is smaller than Supabase (0.5GB vs Supabase's 500MB + auth + storage)
• Compute autoscales to zero — cold starts when inactive (50-200ms)

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PlanetScale: MySQL with Supercharged Branching

PlanetScale builds on Vitess (the MySQL clustering tech behind YouTube and GitHub). Their non-blocking schema changes and database branching are the best in class.

The Key Differentiator: Non-Blocking Migrations

-- Regular MySQL: ALTER TABLE locks the entire table
-- On a large table, this can take hours and block all queries
ALTER TABLE users ADD COLUMN subscription_tier VARCHAR(20);

-- PlanetScale: deploy requests handle this transparently
-- Schema changes are applied without locking
-- Works with tables of billions of rows

When PlanetScale Wins

• Teams with MySQL experience (Rails, Laravel backgrounds)
• Apps that will need to scale to millions of rows with schema changes
• Products that need deploy request workflow for schema review
• Companies that had schema migration problems in the past

PlanetScale Limitations

• MySQL, not PostgreSQL — many boilerplates are Prisma + Postgres; need to swap
• Prisma had issues with PlanetScale's lack of foreign key enforcement (improving)
• Free tier has been scaled back significantly since 2024 — hobby plan is now paid
• Row Level Security doesn't exist (Postgres-specific feature)

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Which Boilerplates Use What

Boilerplate	Database	Notes
ShipFast	Supabase or MongoDB	Supabase version most popular
Supastarter	Supabase	RLS-based multi-tenancy
Makerkit	Supabase	Supabase-first, Postgres option
T3 Stack	PostgreSQL (any)	Usually Neon or Supabase Postgres
Epic Stack	SQLite + Fly / PostgreSQL	Starts SQLite, scales to Postgres

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Decision Framework

Need auth + storage + realtime in one platform?
  → Supabase

Want pure Postgres with git-like branching and no ecosystem lock-in?
  → Neon

MySQL team or need schema changes on tables with billions of rows?
  → PlanetScale

Starting small, want the simplest setup?
  → Supabase (most batteries included) or Neon (simplest pricing)

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Compare boilerplates by database provider on StarterPick.