Side-by-side comparison · Databases & Backend
Firebase vs PlanetScale vs Neon
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
Firebase
4.1Pick it if: Teams building mobile or real-time apps, especially if you already live in Google's world.
PlanetScale
3.9Pick it if: Teams running a real product who need their database to stay fast and never go missing.
Neon
4.0Pick it if: Developers and Claude Code users who want a dependable Postgres database and nothing else.
Firebase scores highest overall, but Neon gives you more for your money. Which one is right comes down to what you value most.
Overview
| Attribute | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | Google's backend for mobile and web apps, with logins, data and hosting in one. | Fast, serious databases for apps that have outgrown the free tiers. | A Postgres database that scales to zero when idle, so side projects cost nothing. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Paid | Freemium |
| Starting price | Pay as you go | From $5/mo | Pay as you go |
| 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 | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.1Winner | 3.9 | 4.0 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 3.5 | 3.0 | 3.5 |
| FeaturesHow much it can do, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.0 | 5.0 | 4.5 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.0 | 3.0 | 4.5 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 5.0 | 4.0 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | Yes |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | No | No |
| Understands images | Yes | No | No |
| Makes images | Yes | No | No |
| Makes video | No | No | No |
| Writes code | Yes | No | Yes |
| Runs agents or automations | Yes | No | No |
| Learns your brand or style | No | No | No |
| Works in many languages | – | – | – |
| Capabilities score | 10/ 17 | 4/ 17 | 7/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | SparkOur pick Free Early projects and apps with a small audience. | Postgres, single node From $5/mo Staging and small apps that can tolerate a restart. | FreeOur pick Free Side projects and learning. |
Blaze Pay as you go, no monthly fee Anything that might grow past the free quotas. | Postgres, high availabilityOur pick From $15/mo Production apps with paying users. | Launch Pay as you go, no monthly minimum Small production apps. | |
Metal From $50/mo Apps where database speed is the bottleneck. | Scale Pay as you go, higher rates Teams needing an SLA and bigger databases. | ||
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 | Spark is enough until real users arrive. Move to Blaze when you need Cloud Functions or you're close to a quota, and set a budget alert the moment you do. There's no middle tier, so your bill goes straight from nothing to usage based. | 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. | Free covers more than you'd expect, including several small live apps. Move to Launch when a project needs more than 100 compute hours a month or a longer restore window. Scale is for teams that need an SLA, not for individuals. |
Key features
| Attribute | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
|---|---|---|---|
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Pros and cons
| Attribute | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Firebase | PlanetScale | Neon |
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| Best for |
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How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability. The "Visit" buttons may use affiliate links, which never affect a score.
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