Side-by-side comparison · Databases & Backend
Convex vs Pinecone vs PlanetScale
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: People building collaborative or real-time apps with Claude Code who want the backend to just work.
Pick it if: Developers and technical teams building AI apps or chatbots that need to search a company's own documents.
Pick it if: Teams running a real product who need their database to stay fast and never go missing.
Overview
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | A backend that keeps every screen of your app in sync the moment the data changes. | A database that lets AI apps search your own documents by meaning, not exact words. | Fast, serious databases for apps that have outgrown the free tiers. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium | Paid |
| Starting price | $25/developer/mo | $20/mo | From $5/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | No |
| Works with Claude Code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.1 | 3.8 | 4.1 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 3.5 | 2.5 | 3.0 |
| FeaturesHow completely it covers its own job, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.5 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.0 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.0 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | No |
| 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 | Yes | No | No |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | Yes | No |
| Understands images | No | – | No |
| Makes images | No | No | No |
| Makes video | No | No | No |
| Writes code | No | No | No |
| Runs agents or automations | Yes | Yes | No |
| Learns your brand or style | No | – | No |
| Works in many languages | – | Yes | – |
| Capabilities score | 8/ 17 | 8/ 17 | 4/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Free and Starter Free, then pay as you go Side projects and small teams getting started. | StarterOur pick Free Learning and small projects. | Postgres, single node From $5/mo Staging and small apps that can tolerate a restart. |
ProfessionalOur pick $25/developer/mo Products with real users. | Builder $20/mo Solo developers and small teams. | Postgres, high availabilityOur pick From $15/mo Production apps with paying users. | |
Business and Enterprise From $2,500/mo Larger companies with compliance and scale needs. | Standard $50/mo minimum, then pay as you go Production apps. | Metal From $50/mo Apps where database speed is the bottleneck. | |
Enterprise $500/mo minimum, then pay as you go Large companies. | Vitess (MySQL) From $39/mo MySQL apps that need to shard as they grow. | ||
Enterprise Custom Single-tenant or fully managed setups. | |||
| Which plan to pick | Start on Free. Move to Professional when you launch, mainly for daily backups and the bigger limits. Business is a big jump aimed at teams of 50 or more, so most readers will never need it. | Build and test on Starter. Move to Builder when you need more room or a second project, and to Standard only when the app has real users and needs backups and SSO. | 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. |
Key features
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standout features |
|
|
|
Pros and cons
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pros |
|
|
|
| Cons |
|
|
|
Who each one is for
| Attribute | Convex | Pinecone | PlanetScale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for |
|
|
|
| You'll find it used by |
|
|
|
Questions people ask
Which is better, Convex, Pinecone or PlanetScale?
They tie on our overall rating (Convex 4.1/5, Pinecone 3.8/5 and PlanetScale 4.1/5). Convex is best for collaborative and multiplayer apps and live dashboards. Pinecone is best for chatbots that answer from your own documents and searching large knowledge bases by meaning. PlanetScale is best for production apps with paying users and predictable database performance.
Which is cheaper, Convex, Pinecone or PlanetScale?
Convex: There's a free plan, and paid plans start at $25/developer/mo. Pinecone: 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.
Which is easier to use, Convex, Pinecone or PlanetScale?
Convex rates highest for ease of use in our scores. People building collaborative or real-time apps with Claude Code who want the backend to just work.
How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability.
Swap in another tool
More tools from Databases & Backend in the library.
