Neon

Serverless Postgres for modern developers

As of 30 August 2026, Neon is free to use. Neon is a fully managed serverless PostgreSQL database with autoscaling, branching, and bottomless storage. Softwr lists it under Cloud. Neon is made by Neon Inc, launched in 2021, available on Web.

Visit siteVisit Neon

Overview

What Neon does

Neon is a fully managed serverless PostgreSQL database with autoscaling, branching, and bottomless storage. Built for modern development workflows with instant database branching.

What people use it for

Serverless applications
Development databases
Preview environments
Testing

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Neon.

Compute pricing at $0.106-$0.222/CU-hour means costs scale directly with workload, unlike fixed-price alternatives
Separation of compute and storage may add complexity to cost prediction compared to all-in-one plans

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Neon

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Neonvs
PlanetScale
PlanetScale: Serverless MySQL database with instant branching and automatic scaling
Neonvs
Supabase
Supabase: Open-source Firebase alternative with PostgreSQL and real-time APIs
Neonvs
Upstash
Upstash: Serverless Redis platform with automatic scaling and low latency

Pricing

What Neon costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

Free

100 CU-hours/month
0.5 GB storage
1 project

Launch

$15 /mo

Pay-as-you-go compute
$0.35/GB storage
Multiple projects

Scale

$31 /mo

Higher compute rates
99.95% SLA
HIPAA compliance

Capabilities

Features

Serverless PostgreSQL
Database Branching
Autoscaling
Bottomless Storage
Point-in-time Recovery
Connection Pooling
Read Replicas
Instant Cloning
Vercel
Integration with Vercel
Prisma
Integration with Prisma
Drizzle
Integration with Drizzle
Django
Integration with Django

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

What is Neon and what makes it different?

Neon is a serverless PostgreSQL database that separates compute and storage, enabling automatic scaling and instant database branching. After acquisition by Databricks in May 2025, pricing has been significantly reduced.

Source

Does Neon offer a free tier?

Yes, Neon's free tier includes 100 compute units per month and 0.5 GB of storage. This is suitable for development and small projects.

Source

What are the paid plans and pricing for Neon?

Neon offers consumption-based pricing on Launch ($0.106/CU-hour, approximately $15/month) and Scale ($0.222/CU-hour, approximately $31/month) plans with separate storage billing at $0.35/GB-month. No monthly minimum required.

Source

What features does Neon provide?

Neon includes git-like branching for database copies, point-in-time recovery, data anonymization for testing, managed authentication, serverless functions, and object storage that branches with projects.

Source

What compliance and reliability guarantees does Neon provide?

Neon's Scale tier offers 99.95% uptime SLA, HIPAA compliance, SOC2 certification, and private networking via PrivateLink at no extra cost.

Source

Behind it

Who makes Neon

Company: Neon Inc
Based in: San Francisco, CA

Keep looking

Where to go from Neon

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Neon, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.