Managed Postgres · Comparison
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL vs Neon vs PlanetScale
3 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 | Neon | 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 pricePostgres you pay for by the compute hour, with scale to zero, branches that start with your data, and a free plan of 100 projects. | 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 | 6.5 | 6.7 |
| Free option | Free trial | Free plan | Paid only |
| Card to start | –Not measured | No card needed | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $0.016/hour | $0.106/CU-hour | $5/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Billing units | Instance hours, storage (GB-month), backup storage above the free amount, CPU credits | Compute-unit hours, storage and restore history (GB-month) | Cluster size per month, storage above 10 GB, backups above 2× disk |
| Free plan | None; AWS Free Tier credits for new accounts | 1 GB per project, 100 projects, 100 CU-hours each; no card | None; single node from $5/mo |
| 10 GB app with staging, per month | $19.10 on db.t4g.micro, computed | $28.06 on Launch, computed | $15 on Base, computed |
| Point-in-time recovery | Up to 35 days, no add-on; extra backup storage $0.095/GB-month | Up to 7 days on Launch at $0.20/GB-month; 30 on Scale | 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 | None; history and snapshots billed per GB | Every 12 hours, kept 2 days |
| SOC 2 Type II report | AWS reports in AWS Artifact, any account | Scale plan | Base plan (ISO 27001 not stated) |
| HIPAA BAA | Self-serve in AWS Artifact | Scale plan, self-serve | Base plan, on request |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Milan, Spain | Frankfurt, London | Frankfurt, Dublin (AWS); Belgium, Netherlands (GCP) |
| SAML SSO for the dashboard | IAM Identity Center, no extra charge | Not listed | $199/mo add-on on Base |
| Branch with production data | Yes, by restoring a snapshot or point in time to a new instance | Yes, every branch starts as a copy | 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, Neon has the most generous free plan and the most flexible branches here, and usage billing suits databases that are often idle. Compliance and longer restore windows move you to Scale, at about twice the compute rate. | 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; Neon: 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.
From our Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL when
- You want SOC 2 reports, a BAA and SAML SSO without a higher plan, and up to 35 days of point-in-time restore.
- Pick Neon when
- You want a permanent free plan, compute that scales to zero, and branches that start as copies of your data.
From our Neon review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick Neon when
- You want a free plan, scale to zero for idle databases, and branches that copy data when created.
- Pick PlanetScale when
- You want SOC 2 and a BAA on the entry plan, SAML SSO and an audit log, and a fixed monthly price per cluster.
From our PlanetScale review
Checked Oct 15, 2026- Pick PlanetScale when
- You want fixed monthly prices per cluster, replicas across three zones, SAML SSO and an audit log.
- Pick Neon when
- You want a free plan, scale to zero for idle databases, and branches that start with your data.
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
- NeonLaunch$0.106/CU-hourNo monthly minimum; storage $0.35/GB-month
- Restore history up to 7 days at $0.20/GB-month
- Scale to zero can be turned off
- 10 branches per project, then $1.50/branch-month
- 500 GB egress per project, then $0.10/GB
- Billing support
- 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, Neon 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 3 self-serve products here (6.9/10).
- If you want to try it without entering a card
- NeonFree plan, no card needed; scored 6.5/10.
- Lowest starter price
- PlanetScale$5/mo for the Base (single node PS-5) plan. Neon lists no comparable paid price.
- 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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