Neon Alternatives 2026: 5 Options, 3 Free
Neon alternatives: Supabase, MongoDB, CockroachDB, PlanetScale and 1 more. Prices and licenses checked October 25, 2026.
•3 min read•Databases & Database Tools
Verdict:Leave Neon when its per-compute-hour metering makes your bill hard to predict, or when you need more than a database. Neon's free plan is permanent, with 100 projects, 100 CU-hours and 1 GB of storage per project, and paid use is metered at $0.106 per CU-hour with no monthly minimum. The alternatives trade that metering for something else. Supabase is the closest swap if you want Postgres with auth and file storage in one project, and its Pro plan is $25 a month for 100,000 monthly active users. MongoDB Atlas gives you a free M0 cluster forever with 512 MB of storage, which suits a prototype, but you change from SQL to documents. CockroachDB's pricing page offers a 30-day trial with $400 in credit and no permanent free tier, and it fits teams that expect to spread data across nodes. PlanetScale has no permanent free plan, and its lowest cluster is $5 a month for a fixed-size Postgres node. Render keeps the database next to your web services, so you manage one dashboard, but its database does not scale to zero the way Neon does. The concrete trade-off is between metered usage and a fixed monthly size. Stay on Neon if your database is idle much of the day and you want to pay only for the hours it runs.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Free (Free plan: 50,000 monthly active users for Auth, 500 MB database, 2 active projects); paid from $25 per month (Pro, 100,000 MAU) | Web, Self-hosted | Postgres with auth and storage bundled | Docs only |
| MongoDB | Free (M0 cluster free forever with 512 MB storage); paid from $8 per month, Flex cluster base tier billed hourly (about $0.011 per hour, assuming 30 days of use) | Web browser | Document data with a free cluster | Docs only |
| CockroachDB | See pricing page | Linux, macOS, Windows | Distributed SQL across nodes | Docs only |
| PlanetScale | Paid from $5 per per month, Postgres PS-5 single-node cluster on AWS us-east-1 (cluster only; storage, backups and egress billed extra) | Web | Fixed-size managed Postgres | Docs only |
| Render | Free (Free web services: 750 instance hours per month, spin down after 15 minutes idle, no persistent disk; free Postgres is 1 GB and expires after 30 days) | Web, Cloud | Apps and databases in one place | Docs only |
| Convex | Free (Free & Starter: 0 dollars with pay-as-you-go beyond the free tier, 1-6 developers, 0.5 GB database storage, 1 GB file storage, 1M function calls); paid from $25 per developer/month (Professional, 1-20 developers) | Web | Backend and database | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You want Postgres plus auth and storage in one project (Supabase is the pick)
- You are prototyping and want a free database forever (MongoDB is the pick)
- You expect the data to outgrow one node (CockroachDB is the pick)
- You want a fixed monthly cluster price (PlanetScale is the pick)
- You want the database beside your web services (Render is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on Neon features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
Neon today: Free (Free plan (permanent): 100 projects, 10 branches, 100 CU-hours, 1 GB storage per project, 5 GB public network transfer, community support); paid from $0.106 per per CU-hour, metered with no monthly minimum (Launch rate) (Neon pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Why people look for Neon alternatives
Neon's Free plan suspends compute when its 100 CU-hours or 5 GB of egress run out, and blocks writes above 1 GB per project or 20 GB in total; it also stops new branches at 10. Free autosuspend after 5 minutes cannot be turned off and history is 6 hours. Launch bills $0.106 per CU-hour and $0.35 per GB-month; Scale at $0.222 per CU-hour adds configurable autosuspend and 30-day history.
Supabase
Compared with Neon: Free plan with a Postgres database plus auth and storage in one project. Pro is $25 a month for 100,000 MAU. Neon gives you only the database, so you lose the bundled auth and storage that Supabase includes.
Price: Free (Free plan: 50,000 monthly active users for Auth, 500 MB database, 2 active projects); paid from $25 per month (Pro, 100,000 MAU) (Supabase pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web, Self-hosted. Proprietary.
Best for: Postgres with auth and storage bundled.
Worth knowing: Free projects pause after 1 week of inactivity.
MongoDB
Compared with Neon: Atlas M0 is free forever with 512 MB of storage. The Flex base tier is $8 a month. You switch from Postgres to a document database, which changes the data model completely.
Price: Free (M0 cluster free forever with 512 MB storage); paid from $8 per month, Flex cluster base tier billed hourly (about $0.011 per hour, assuming 30 days of use) (MongoDB pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web browser. Proprietary cloud service (Atlas).
Best for: Document data with a free cluster.
Worth knowing: Lowest paid figure is the Flex base tier, not a flat plan.
CockroachDB
Compared with Neon: A 30-day trial with $400 in credit and sales-quoted Cloud pricing, with no permanent free tier shown on its pricing page. It is PostgreSQL-compatible and built to scale across nodes, which Neon's serverless model does not target.
Price: See pricing page (CockroachDB pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Linux, macOS, Windows. Proprietary / source-available.
Best for: Distributed SQL across nodes.
PlanetScale
Compared with Neon: No permanent free plan. The lowest listed cluster is $5 a month on PS-5 in AWS us-east-1, with storage, backups and egress billed extra. Use it when you want a managed Postgres cluster with a fixed size rather than per-CU metering.
Price: Paid from $5 per per month, Postgres PS-5 single-node cluster on AWS us-east-1 (cluster only; storage, backups and egress billed extra) (PlanetScale pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary hosted service.
Best for: Fixed-size managed Postgres.
Render
Compared with Neon: Managed Postgres hosted alongside web services, so the app and database share one dashboard. You give up Neon's per-CU scale-to-zero, which means your database idles on a paid instance.
Price: Free (Free web services: 750 instance hours per month, spin down after 15 minutes idle, no persistent disk; free Postgres is 1 GB and expires after 30 days) (Render pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web, Cloud. Proprietary.
Best for: Apps and databases in one place.
Other popular options (paid)
Convex
Compared with Neon: Free & Starter costs nothing with 0.5 GB of database storage and 1M function calls; Professional is $25 per developer per month. Neon's free plan lists 1 GB of storage per project instead.
Price: Free (Free & Starter: 0 dollars with pay-as-you-go beyond the free tier, 1-6 developers, 0.5 GB database storage, 1 GB file storage, 1M function calls); paid from $25 per developer/month (Professional, 1-20 developers) (Convex pricing, checked 2026-10-25).
Which one to pick
- You want Postgres plus auth and storage in one project: Supabase
- You are prototyping and want a free database forever: MongoDB
- You expect the data to outgrow one node: CockroachDB
- You want a fixed monthly cluster price: PlanetScale
- You want the database beside your web services: Render
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Supabase, MongoDB, CockroachDB, PlanetScale, Render: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from Neon. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked between 2026-10-22 and 2026-10-25: Neon, Supabase, MongoDB, CockroachDB, PlanetScale, Render, Convex. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.