Neon is serverless Postgres with branching, autoscaling and scale-to-zero — you get a real Postgres connection string without managing a server.
Capabilities
Capabilities
- Real Postgres 17, serverless: scales to zero when idle, cold-starts in ~500ms
- Database branching (copy-on-write) for dev/preview environments
- Free tier: 0.5GB storage, generous for personal projects
Best for
- Personal clones and side projects needing real Postgres at $0
- Next.js/serverless apps (works over HTTP driver, no connection pool pain)
Not for
- Sustained high-throughput OLTP (pay for always-on compute instead)