Serverless MySQL database built on Vitess (YouTube's MySQL scaling layer). Known for database branching (feature branches for schema changes), non-blocking schema migrations, and horizontal scaling. Eliminated the free tier in 2024 — minimum $39/month. Best for MySQL-heavy teams needing schema change safety at scale.
Our take
PlanetScale's database branching concept is genuinely novel — treating schema changes like git branches (feature branch → staging → production) with non-blocking deploy requests eliminates the 'lock the database during migration' risk. The Vitess foundation scales to billions of rows. The 2024 removal of the free tier hurt developer adoption and forced many evaluation users to Neon. Best for teams already on MySQL that need enterprise-grade schema change safety.
Product roadmap
PlanetScale is expanding branching automation, adding read-only analytics replicas, and building deeper Prisma/Drizzle ORM integrations. The Postgres support (launched 2024) signals a shift away from MySQL-only positioning.
Who is PlanetScale for?
No free tier. Neon's free tier for Postgres or Supabase's free tier are better starting points for individual developers.
$39/month minimum is acceptable for funded startups. Best choice if the team has existing MySQL expertise and deployment-safety concerns.
Medium teams with active development cycles get real value from database branching — safe schema changes without 2am deployment anxiety.
High-scale MySQL workloads with complex schema evolution needs. Vitess's proven track record at YouTube/GitHub scale is the key differentiator.
Pricing
Scaler
$39/mo- • 10GB storage
- • 1B row reads/month
- • 10M row writes/month
- • 1 production branch
- • 3 dev branches
Scaler Pro
$39/mo- • High-availability cluster
- • Automated backups
- • PSTN clusters
- • 5 dev branches
Enterprise
$null/mo- • Unlimited branches
- • Custom SLA
- • Dedicated support
- • Private networking
Pricing verified 2026-04-16
Ratings
Overall score: 73/100 (composite of the above ratings)
Features
core
advanced
integrations
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vs TemporalFounded: 2018
HQ: San Francisco, CA
Company size: 51-200
Last updated: 2026-04-16