Neon review
A flexible managed PostgreSQL platform for serverless apps and developer teams.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Neon is a fully managed, serverless PostgreSQL platform for developers, teams, and enterprises building web and serverless applications. It separates compute from storage and combines autoscaling and scale-to-zero with database branching, point-in-time restore, read replicas, connection pooling, and API-based provisioning. Neon supports standard PostgreSQL drivers and extensions, including pgvector and PostGIS, and provides web, API, and self-hosted access options.
Pricing is usage-based on the paid tiers. The Free plan costs $0 per month with no time limit, 100 projects, 100 CU-hours monthly per project, 0.5 GB storage per project, up to 6-hour time travel or restores, read replicas, and branching. Launch is billed at $0.106 per CU-hour, with a typical spend shown as $15 per month, up to 16 CU, 7-day time travel or restores, and 3-day metrics and logs retention. Scale costs $0.222 per CU-hour and adds up to 56 CU, 30-day time travel or restores, private networking, IP allow rules, SLAs, SOC 2, and HIPAA.
Its ecosystem is a strong fit for modern application stacks: integrations include Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, Drizzle ORM, Prisma, and the Neon Serverless Driver. Neon Console, CLI, and API support database management and provisioning, while PgBouncer pooling supports up to 10,000 pooled connections; direct connection capacity depends on compute size. The Apache 2.0 license and PostgreSQL extension support add flexibility. Choose Neon for managed, serverless PostgreSQL with branching and elastic compute. Teams needing a database engine beyond PostgreSQL should choose another product.
Neon pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Free plan includes branching, replicas, and point-in-time restores
- Autoscaling and scale-to-zero help align compute with demand
- Works with Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, Prisma, and Drizzle ORM
- Where it doesn't
- Free projects are limited to 0.5 GB storage each
- Launch pricing varies with usage rather than a fixed monthly fee
- The product is focused on PostgreSQL rather than multiple database engines
Neon fact sheet, pricing and score →
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