Database Cost Comparison

Compare monthly costs and features across 8 managed databases. Filter by free tier, serverless, branching, vector search, and more.

NeonSupabasePlanetScaleTursoRailwayAWS RDSAuroraCloud SQL

Database size

Traffic level

Must-have features

2 GB storage, light traffic8 of 8 databases match
Best valueTurso

Turso

sqlite

$0

/mo est.

Edge-native SQLite with a database per tenant and global replication

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Multi-tenant SaaS (one DB per customer), edge-native apps, SQLite-first development

Free: 500 databases, 9 GB storage, 1B row reads/mo

Free tier available. Scaler $29/mo (10K databases, 24 GB, 100B row reads). Extra storage $0.75/GB.

Railway

Railway Postgres

postgres

$8.40

/mo est.

Zero-config Postgres inside Railway — deploy in under a minute

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Teams already on Railway who want the simplest possible managed Postgres

Usage-based. Roughly $0.20/GB/mo storage + compute. Typical small app: $5-20/mo. No fixed plans.

AWS

AWS RDS

postgres

$14

/mo est.

Standard managed Postgres on AWS — battle-tested, full-featured

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Teams on AWS who need production-grade Postgres with Multi-AZ, read replicas, and full extension support

On-demand. db.t4g.micro $12/mo, db.t4g.small $24/mo, db.t3.medium $49/mo. Storage $0.115/GB-month (gp2). No free tier after 12-month trial.

GCP

GCP Cloud SQL

postgres

$17

/mo est.

Fully managed Postgres on Google Cloud with automated backups and HA

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Teams on GCP who want managed Postgres with read replicas, Cloud IAM integration, and cross-region HA

db-g1-small $15/mo (shared vCPU). db-n1-standard-1 $46/mo (1 vCPU, 3.75 GB). Storage $0.17/GB-month (SSD).

Neon

Neon

postgres

$19

/mo est.

Serverless Postgres with branching and scale-to-zero

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Dev teams wanting a branch per PR, AI apps using pgvector, projects that need zero idle cost

Free: 0.5 GB, 190 compute-hours/mo, 1 project

Free tier available. Launch $19/mo (10 GB, 300 compute-hrs). Scale $69/mo (50 GB, 750 compute-hrs). Extra compute $0.16/hr.

Supabase

Supabase

postgres

$25

/mo est.

Postgres with auth, storage, realtime, and edge functions included

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Teams wanting auth + DB + storage in one place, rapid prototyping, open-source self-hosting option

Free: 500 MB, 50K auth users, 1 GB file storage, 500 edge function invocations

Free tier available. Pro $25/mo (8 GB storage, dedicated compute). Extra storage $0.021/GB. Compute add-ons from $10/mo.

PlanetScale

PlanetScale

mysql

$39

/mo est.

MySQL on Vitess with schema branching and unlimited connections

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: MySQL shops needing horizontal sharding, teams wanting schema migrations with zero downtime

No free tier. Scaler $39/mo (10 GB, 100M row reads, 10M row writes). Extra storage $2.25/GB. Extra reads $1.49/1B rows.

AWS

Aurora Serverless v2

postgres

$43

/mo est.

Auto-scaling Postgres on AWS — scales by ACU, not fixed instance size

Free tier Serverless Branching Vector MySQL compat Conn pooling Global repl.

Best for: Variable-load production apps on AWS, read-heavy workloads with unpredictable traffic spikes

$0.12/ACU-hour. Min 0.5 ACU = ~$43/mo. Storage $0.10/GB-month. Does not scale to zero (use RDS Proxy for connection pooling).

Cost estimates are approximations based on published list prices as of April 2026. Actual costs depend on query volume, connection counts, and regional pricing. Always verify on each provider's pricing page before committing.

How it works

1

Set your storage and traffic

Choose your expected database size (0.5 GB to 100 GB) and traffic level. These two inputs drive 90% of the cost difference between providers.

2

Filter by must-have features

Need a free tier? Serverless scale-to-zero? Database branching for preview environments? Check the boxes and non-matching options fade out.

3

Compare costs and features

Databases are ranked by monthly price. The best-value option that matches your filters is highlighted. Pricing notes explain what drives each estimate.

Databases covered

Neon

Serverless Postgres with branching and pgvector. Free tier available. The default choice for new Postgres projects in 2025-2026.

Supabase

Postgres with auth, storage, realtime, and edge functions bundled. Open-source and self-hostable.

PlanetScale

MySQL on Vitess with schema branching and unlimited connections. No free tier; starts at $39/mo.

Turso

SQLite-based, edge-native, with a database per tenant. Free tier with 9 GB and 500 databases.

Railway Postgres

Zero-config Postgres for teams already on Railway. Usage-based billing, no fixed plan required.

AWS RDS

Standard managed Postgres or MySQL on AWS. Production-grade with Multi-AZ and read replicas.

Aurora Serverless v2

Auto-scaling Postgres or MySQL on AWS. Scales by ACU; minimum ~$43/mo. Best for variable load.

GCP Cloud SQL

Fully managed Postgres or MySQL on Google Cloud with built-in HA and IAM integration.

What infrastructure should I use overall?

Get a full stack recommendation: compute, auth, CDN, storage, and a migration trigger.

Architecture Recommendation →

Compare full cloud costs (AWS vs GCP vs Azure)

12-month cost projection including compute, storage, bandwidth, and database.

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