Tools / Neon
About Neon
Neon is a backend platform built around Lakebase Postgres, a serverless Postgres database with storage-compute separation. Beyond the database itself, it includes managed authentication built on Better Auth, S3-compatible object storage that branches alongside your projects, serverless functions that run next to your data, and an AI Gateway that exposes frontier and open-source models through one API. Neon is part of the Databricks platform. Its branching feature lets you create isolated copies of your entire backend — database, storage included — the way you'd work with pull requests, which is aimed at both development workflows and coding agents. Neon provides MCP, CLI, and SDK access, and markets itself as infrastructure for app-generation agents like Replit and v0 AI. Other advertised capabilities include autoscaling, instant restore for recovering from mistakes, and vector, keyword, and hybrid search. The free plan includes 1 GB of Postgres storage per project and up to 100 projects.
What Neon offers
- Lakebase Postgres — serverless Postgres with storage-compute separation, autoscaling, and branching
- Authentication — fully-managed user auth built on Better Auth, included in every database
- Object Storage — S3-compatible storage that branches with your projects
- Functions — serverless compute running close to your database, without timeouts
- AI Gateway — one API for frontier and open-source models, powered by Databricks
- Search — vector, keyword, and hybrid search
- Instant Restore — point-in-time recovery when something goes wrong
Who it's for
Neon targets three overlapping groups: full-stack developers who want a backend without managing servers, teams using branching workflows to isolate and test database changes, and platforms or app-generation agents (the site specifically mentions Replit and v0 AI) that need to provision isolated backends for many end users. The site also calls out bursty workloads and large databases as use cases.
Free plan
The free plan includes 1 GB of Postgres storage per project and 100 projects. Details on paid tiers are on the pricing page.
Company
Neon is part of the Databricks platform. The site links to a Discord community and shows a GitHub org at github.com/neondatabase with 23.2k stars at the time of scraping. A public status page is available at neonstatus.com.
FAQ
Is Neon just Postgres? No. Postgres is the core, but the platform also includes managed authentication (Better Auth), S3-compatible object storage, serverless functions, and an AI Gateway.
What is branching? Branching creates isolated copies of your database — and per the site, your storage too — so you can test changes and roll back without touching production. The site compares it to working with PRs.
Is there a free tier? Yes. It includes 1 GB of Postgres storage per project and 100 projects.
How much does it cost? The homepage doesn't list pricing details; see neon.com/pricing.
Does Neon work with coding agents? The site positions itself as infrastructure for agents, with access via MCP, CLI, and SDK, and mentions Replit and v0 AI as examples.
Who owns Neon? Neon is part of Databricks.
Alternatives
- Supabase — Postgres plus auth, storage, and realtime; the closest feature-for-feature comparison
- PlanetScale — serverless MySQL built on Vitess, now with Postgres too
- Railway — deploy web apps, databases, and services with automatic scaling
- Render — cloud platform for web services, databases, and cron
- Turso — SQLite for production, distributed and edge-ready
- Convex — reactive backend combining database, functions, and realtime
- Upstash — serverless Redis and Kafka with pay-per-request pricing
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