Side-by-side comparison · Databases & Backend
Clerk vs PlanetScale vs Render
Everything that matters when choosing between them, in one place: our rating, what each can do, what they cost, and the trade-offs.
Comparing 3 tools, the maximum.
At a glance
Pick it if: Anyone building a web or mobile app who needs user accounts and logins without writing them from scratch.
Pick it if: Teams running a real product who need their database to stay fast and never go missing.
Pick it if: Builders and small teams who want predictable monthly prices for hosting an app and its database.
Overview
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | Ready-made sign-up, login and user accounts you can add to an app in minutes. | Fast, serious databases for apps that have outgrown the free tiers. | Simple hosting for websites, apps and databases, with free static sites. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Paid | Freemium |
| Starting price | $20/mo | From $5/mo | $0/mo plus computing |
| Free plan | Yes | No | Yes |
| Works with Claude Code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.4Winner | 4.1 | 3.9 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 3.0 | 4.0 |
| FeaturesHow completely it covers its own job, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.0 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.5 | 5.0 | 4.0 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 5.0 | 3.5 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | No | Yes |
| Mobile app | No | No | No |
| Desktop app | No | No | No |
| Browser extension | No | No | No |
| API access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teams & business | |||
| Team workspace | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Enterprise plan or SSO | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connects to other apps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Open source or self-hosted | No | No | No |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | No | No | Yes |
| Understands images | – | No | – |
| Makes images | No | No | No |
| Makes video | No | No | No |
| Writes code | No | No | No |
| Runs agents or automations | – | No | Yes |
| Learns your brand or style | – | No | – |
| Works in many languages | Yes | – | – |
| Capabilities score | 6/ 17 | 4/ 17 | 7/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Hobby Free New apps and side projects. | Postgres, single node From $5/mo Staging and small apps that can tolerate a restart. | HobbyOur pick $0/mo plus computing Personal projects and testing. |
ProOur pick $20/mo billed yearly, or $25 monthly Apps with paying customers. | Postgres, high availabilityOur pick From $15/mo Production apps with paying users. | Pro $25/mo plus computing Teams running production apps. | |
Business $250/mo billed yearly, or $300 monthly Growing companies that need compliance paperwork. | Metal From $50/mo Apps where database speed is the bottleneck. | Scale $499/mo plus computing Teams with governance and compliance needs. | |
Enterprise Custom Large companies with strict security needs. | Vitess (MySQL) From $39/mo MySQL apps that need to shard as they grow. | Enterprise Custom Companies that need uptime guarantees. | |
Enterprise Custom Single-tenant or fully managed setups. | |||
| Which plan to pick | Build on Hobby. It's enough until you have customers who care about the Clerk branding or need multi-factor login, then move to Pro. Business only matters when a customer asks for a SOC 2 report. | Don't start here for a weekend project; Neon or Supabase are free. When a product has paying customers, the $15 high-availability Postgres is the sensible entry point. Only go to Metal once Insights shows the disk is the slow part. | Stay on Hobby and pay only for the services you run. A $7 web service and a $6 database cover most small apps. Move to Pro when a team needs to share the workspace or you want autoscaling and previews. |
Key features
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
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Pros and cons
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Clerk | PlanetScale | Render |
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Questions people ask
Which is better, Clerk, PlanetScale or Render?
Clerk scores highest overall in our ratings (Clerk 4.4/5, PlanetScale 4.1/5 and Render 3.9/5). Clerk is best for adding sign-up and login to an app and Google, Apple and passwordless sign-in. PlanetScale is best for production apps with paying users and predictable database performance. Render is best for hosting a backend or API with fixed monthly pricing and free static websites.
Which is cheaper, Clerk, PlanetScale or Render?
Clerk: There's a free plan, and paid plans start at $20/mo. PlanetScale: There's no free plan. Paid plans start at From $5/mo. Render: There's a free plan, and paid plans start at $0/mo plus computing.
Which is easier to use, Clerk, PlanetScale or Render?
Clerk rates highest for ease of use in our scores. Anyone building a web or mobile app who needs user accounts and logins without writing them from scratch.
How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability.
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