Neon
Databases & Backend
A Postgres database that scales to zero when idle, so side projects cost nothing.
PlanetScale
Fast, serious databases for apps that have outgrown the free tiers.
PaidWorks with Claude Code
Visit website What is it?
PlanetScale hosts MySQL and Postgres databases built for speed and reliability. It made its name running the databases behind some very large products, and now offers the same engineering at small sizes.
The pitch is predictable performance: your database runs on dedicated hardware (the Metal option) rather than shared servers, with built-in backups, safe schema changes and detailed insights into slow queries. Its command-line tool is easy to drive from Claude Code.
There is no free plan, and it is overkill for a weekend project. Pick it when a product is live, paying customers depend on it and the free tiers elsewhere have started to creak.
Who it's for
Teams running a real product who need their database to stay fast and never go missing.
Best for
- Production apps with paying users
- Predictable database performance
- Safe schema changes
- MySQL or Postgres at scale
Why it made the list
When reliability matters more than a free tier, it is the database experienced engineers reach for.
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