Neon vs Supabase for hosted Postgres: usage-based compute or a fixed monthly plan
Stack Founder HQ · Updated 18 October 2026 · Hosting and databases · How we write
Neon and Supabase both give you a managed Postgres database, so the SQL, the drivers and your schema are the same with either. Where they differ is in how you pay and what comes with the database. Neon is a serverless Postgres service that charges for compute by the hour and can scale to zero when idle. Neon's site now describes its platform as Lakebase Postgres, by Databricks. Supabase is a backend platform, with auth, storage, functions and auto-generated APIs built around a Postgres database, on a fixed monthly plan.
*Prices checked on 18 October 2026 on neon.com/pricing and supabase.com/pricing. US dollars.*
Free plans
| Neon Free | Supabase Free | |
|---|---|---|
| Projects | 100 | 2 active projects |
| Storage | 1 GB per project | 500 MB database |
| Compute | 100 CU-hours a month per project, sizes up to 2 CU (8 GB RAM) | Shared, within the free plan |
| Idle behaviour | Scales to zero after 5 minutes of inactivity | Project paused after 1 week of inactivity |
| Restore | Instant restore up to 6 hours (or 1 GB of changes) | Daily backups (kept 7 days) start on Pro |
Neon's free plan suits developers with lots of small projects, because you can have up to 100 of them. Supabase's free plan gives you the whole backend, including auth for 50,000 monthly active users, but only two active projects.
How Neon charges
Neon's paid plans are usage-based:
| Launch | Scale | |
|---|---|---|
| Compute | $0.106 per CU-hour | $0.222 per CU-hour |
| Storage | $0.35 per GB-month | $0.35 per GB-month |
| Maximum size | 16 CU (64 GB RAM) | 56 CU (224 GB RAM) |
| Restore window | Up to 7 days | Up to 30 days |
| Neon's "typical spend" | $15 a month (intermittent load, 1 GB) | $701 a month (high load, 100 GB) |
A compute unit (CU) is a measure of database size. Neon's free plan describes 2 CU as 8 GB of RAM, so 1 CU is about 4 GB. You pay for the compute hours your database is actually running. With scale to zero, a database that nobody is using stops accruing compute after five minutes. On Launch, you can turn this off if you can't accept the short delay while it wakes up.
Worked examples on Launch, using Neon's published rates:
- A small app running all the time at 0.25 CU: 0.25 × 730 hours = 182.5 CU-hours, which comes to about $19.35. Add 2 GB of storage at $0.35 per GB-month ($0.70), for a total of about $20 a month.
- An internal tool used during working hours only (8 hours a day, 22 days, 0.25 CU): 44 CU-hours, about $4.66, plus storage. That makes roughly $5 a month, because the database scales to zero the rest of the time.
How Supabase charges
Supabase Pro is $25 a month per organisation, with $10 of compute credit that covers one Micro instance. Each project gets 8 GB of disk, and the plan includes 250 GB of egress, 100 GB of file storage, 100,000 auth MAUs and daily backups kept for seven days. Supabase lists additional projects from $10 a month, and larger compute sizes cost more. A spend cap is on by default.
For one always-on app, the cost is predictable: about $25 a month until you outgrow the quotas. Supabase's pricing is based on compute instances you choose for each project, and its pricing page doesn't list a Neon-style scale to zero. In practice, a seldom-used project costs much the same as a busy one.
Branching
Neon's distinctive feature is branching. You can create a copy-on-write branch of your database, including its data, in seconds. This is useful for:
- a separate database for each pull request or preview deployment
- testing a migration on real data before running it in production
- restoring to a point in time
Neon includes 10 branches per project on Free and Launch, and 25 on Scale. Additional branches on paid plans cost $0.002 per branch-hour.
Supabase also offers branching for preview environments. Check its documentation for current pricing, as each branch uses its own compute.
What else you get
- Supabase includes authentication, file storage, real-time subscriptions, edge functions and auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs. If you want those, using one platform saves wiring several services together.
- Neon's pricing page also lists newer backend features, such as managed auth, object storage and functions, which have their own allowances. Neon is still most often used as just the database, alongside your own back-end code and a separate auth provider.
Lock-in
Both are standard Postgres, so your data can be moved to any other Postgres host with ordinary tools such as pg_dump. The lock-in risk comes from the extras: Supabase's auth, storage and APIs, or Neon's branching workflow in your CI. Plan for how you would replace those if you ever moved.
Which to choose
- Neon if you want just a database, you have many small or intermittently used projects, or database branching for previews would change your workflow.
- Supabase if you want auth, storage and APIs alongside the database, on one predictable bill.
- Either works well for a typical early-stage SaaS product. Estimate your compute hours for Neon, and check whether the $25 Supabase plan covers your projects, before deciding.