Neon vs Amazon Aurora

Serverless Postgres with branching meets aws's database that makes you feel fancy without the price tag of oracle, but still costs more than your rent. Here's our take.

Neon

Nice Pick

Serverless Postgres with branching. PlanetScale vibes, Postgres reality.

Pros

• Serverless Postgres
• Branching
• Generous free tier
• Scale to zero

Cons

• Newer
• Cold starts
• Smaller community

Amazon Aurora

AWS's database that makes you feel fancy without the price tag of Oracle, but still costs more than your rent.

Pros

• Fully managed with automatic scaling, backups, and patching
• Up to 5x MySQL and 3x PostgreSQL performance with cloud-optimized storage
• High availability and durability through multi-AZ replication
• MySQL and PostgreSQL compatibility for easy migration

Cons

• Can get expensive quickly with scaling and I/O costs
• Vendor lock-in to AWS ecosystem
• Limited to AWS regions, which might affect latency for global apps

The Verdict

Use Neon if: You want serverless postgres and can live with newer.

Use Amazon Aurora if: You prioritize fully managed with automatic scaling, backups, and patching over what Neon offers.

The Bottom Line

Neon wins

Serverless Postgres with branching. PlanetScale vibes, Postgres reality.