Managed Postgres · Comparison
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL vs PlanetScale
2 products compared side by side: what you pay for with each one first, then the five access facts, entry prices, recorded plan limits and the bottom line of each review. The evidence note under the table says how each product was checked.
Side by side
| Metric | Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Compliance includedManaged Postgres in your own AWS account from $0.016 an hour, with point-in-time restore up to 35 days and a self-serve HIPAA BAA. | Worth the priceProduction Postgres at a fixed monthly price per cluster, from $10 for 1 GiB, with SOC 2 Type 2 reports and BAAs on the self-serve plan. |
| Overall score | 6.9Best | 6.7 |
| Free option | Free trial | Paid only |
| Card to start | –Not measured | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $0.016/hour | $5/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing units | Instance hours, storage (GB-month), backup storage above the free amount, CPU credits | Cluster size per month, storage above 10 GB, backups above 2× disk |
| Free plan | None; AWS Free Tier credits for new accounts | None; single node from $5/mo |
| 10 GB app with staging, per month | $19.10 on db.t4g.micro, computed | $15 on Base, computed |
| Point-in-time recovery | Up to 35 days, no add-on; extra backup storage $0.095/GB-month | 2 days by default; longer with custom backup schedules |
| Automatic backups at no extra charge | 7 days by default (console); free up to provisioned storage | Every 12 hours, kept 2 days |
| SOC 2 Type II report | AWS reports in AWS Artifact, any account | Base plan (ISO 27001 not stated) |
| HIPAA BAA | Self-serve in AWS Artifact | Base plan, on request |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Milan, Spain | Frankfurt, Dublin (AWS); Belgium, Netherlands (GCP) |
| SAML SSO for the dashboard | IAM Identity Center, no extra charge | $199/mo add-on on Base |
| Branch with production data | Yes, by restoring a snapshot or point in time to a new instance | Yes, by restoring a backup to a branch |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, RDS for PostgreSQL includes the most recovery and compliance here at a low listed price, all self-serve. The bill has more lines to estimate than the others, and there is no permanent free plan. | From its public pages, PlanetScale lists the lowest price for our scenario and the most compliance on its entry plan, with backups and PITR included. There is no free plan, and its Postgres branches are separate databases rather than copies. |
Evidence: Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; PlanetScale: facts checked 2026-10-15 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
When to pick each
In the words of each review, with the date its facts were checked.
From our Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL when
- You want point-in-time restore up to 35 days, SAML SSO at no extra charge, and ISO 27001 as well as SOC 2.
- Pick PlanetScale when
- You want the lowest price in our scenario, one fixed monthly price per cluster, and replicas across three zones as a standard size.
Entry price
Baseline: each product's cheapest paid plan, per month. Included usage differs, so read the line under each price.
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQLdb.t4g.micro, Single-AZ$11.68/mo$0.016/hr in us-east-1 (2 vCPUs, 1 GiB); plus storage
- gp3 storage $0.115/GB-month, from 20 GiB
- Backup storage free up to provisioned storage
- CPU above baseline $0.075 per vCPU-hour
- Billed per second after a 10-minute minimum
- PlanetScaleLowest priceSingle node$5/moPS-5 (1/16 vCPU, 512 MiB) in us-east-1; $10 for PS-10 (1 GiB, arm64)
- 10 GB storage included
- Backups every 12 hours, up to 2× disk included
- For development and low-traffic production
- Standard support
Prices as listed on each pricing page, in USD per month, excluding tax. Observed: Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 2026-10-15, PlanetScale 2026-10-15.
Which one fits
- If you need to start today without a sales call
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQLSelf-serve sign-up; the highest score of the 2 self-serve products here (6.9/10).
- Lowest starter price
- PlanetScale$5/mo for the Base (single node PS-5) plan.
- Highest overall score
- Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL6.9/10 (Good). The review shows the score breakdown and the run behind it.
Picked by fixed rules from the table above, not by hand. How we score
Full reviews
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