Neon vs Convex

At a Glance

Neon

Convex

Neon

Convex

No features listed.

Neon

Pros

Branching lets you create a full database copy in seconds, which finally makes database previews per pull request practical+168
Scale-to-zero means you pay nothing when your app is idle, making it the cheapest option for multiple staging environments+152
It's standard Postgres, so every extension, tool, and migration framework you already know works without modification+139
The connection pooling via pgBouncer is built in, so you don't hit connection limits when using serverless functions+127
Point-in-time restore is available even on paid tiers at a much lower price than managed Postgres alternatives+93

Database

Supabase vs Neon

Database

PlanetScale vs Neon

Database

Supabase vs Neon vs PlanetScale

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Scale-to-zero is great for cost but the cold start on a sleeping database adds 500ms-1s of latency to the first request, which can surprise users+145
Some Postgres extensions aren't available yet on Neon because of the storage separation architecture+96
The free tier is limited to a single project and 10 branches, which is tight if you're managing multiple apps+81
The billing dashboard is confusing — compute hour pricing requires math to predict your monthly bill accurately+72

Convex

Pros

The reactive query system means your UI automatically updates when data changes without writing any WebSocket or polling code+154
TypeScript end-to-end from database schema to frontend hooks — no API layer to define, no types to duplicate+142
The local development experience with hot reload is the fastest iteration loop I've found for full-stack TypeScript+127
Mutations run as transactions by default, which means you get ACID guarantees without thinking about it+118
Built-in scheduling for background jobs means you don't need a separate queue service for async work+98

Cons

Heavy vendor lock-in — the data model and query language are proprietary and migrating away would require a full rewrite+167
Free tier limits are easy to hit in production with a modest user base and the paid jump is steep for early-stage apps+139
The reactivity model is powerful but adds mental complexity — reasoning about what triggers a re-render requires learning new patterns+103
Not a good fit if you need complex SQL-style analytics or reporting — the document model makes aggregations verbose+88