Our judgment on Neon vs Supabase: Neon is a Postgres database, with auth, storage and functions added more recently. Supabase is Postgres plus a bundled backend. Pick Neon when your team already owns the application layer and wants a database with branches that carry data by default and a usage bill. Pick Supabase when you want auth, storage and APIs from the same vendor and have someone who can write row-level security policies.
All prices and limits below are as they stood at the time of writing (October 2026), read from each vendor's own pages. Both change them often, so check before you commit. If the database is one of several stack calls on your plate, Hire developers by tech stack: rates, vetting and interview guides covers the rest.
Which one for your situation?
These picks are judgment, not measurements.
| Situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You already have an API layer and want only Postgres | Neon | The database is the product; usage billing with no monthly minimum |
| You want auth, storage and functions from one vendor | Supabase | They ship as part of the platform, with quotas on the plan |
| Preview environments with real data per pull request | Neon | Branches are created with the parent's data by default |
| Staging branches that start empty and are seeded | Supabase | Branches start without data unless you seed or include it |
| EU customers, product data must sit in an EU member state | Either | Both offer EU regions, but check the exact region names |
| Weekend prototype | Either | Both have a free tier, with different pause and deletion rules |
Is Neon a database and Supabase a backend?
Mostly, yes, though the gap is narrowing. Neon's regions page lists five products: Postgres, Managed Better Auth, Object Storage, Functions and AI Gateway. Availability varies by region. Frankfurt has all five, while London has only Postgres and Auth. If you need storage or functions in the UK, Neon's page doesn't list them for London.
Supabase bundles Auth (priced by monthly active users), file storage and Edge Functions in one platform. Its Free plan includes 50,000 monthly active users and 1 GB of file storage. Pro includes 100,000.
So the question to ask is what you get beyond the database, and who owns it. With Neon you'll usually own auth and storage in your own code or buy them elsewhere. With Supabase the vendor supplies them, and you take on its conventions.
How does each one bill?
Neon's pricing page describes usage-based billing with no monthly minimum. Free is $0. Launch is $0.106 per CU-hour and Scale is $0.222 per CU-hour, with storage at $0.35 per GB-month. A CU-hour is a unit of compute time, so the bill follows how long your database actually runs.
Supabase bills a tier plus overage. Per its pricing page, Free is $0, Pro starts at $25 a month and Team at $599 a month, with Enterprise custom. Pro includes 8 GB of disk per project and 100,000 monthly active users, and the spend cap is on by default.
Which bill is forecastable? Our judgment: Supabase's flat tier is easier to put in a budget, and Neon's is easier to start on and may cost less when the database sits idle. Neither is cheaper in the abstract. We won't model a monthly bill, because nobody can without your query load and data size. Take your last month of database activity and run it through both rate cards.
What does the free tier really give you?
Neon Free gives you 100 projects, each with 100 CU-hours and 1 GB of storage (20 GB across the account), plus 10 branches. Scale-to-zero is always on, with a 5 minute idle timeout, and history is 6 hours.
There's a deletion rule to know about. Neon's regions page says that from 5 October 2026, Free projects inactive for 90 days or more are subject to deletion. Don't park anything you care about on a Free project and forget it.
Supabase Free gives you a 500 MB database, 50,000 monthly active users, 2 active projects and 1 GB of file storage. Its pricing page says Free projects are paused after 1 week of inactivity, and that branching and point-in-time recovery aren't included. Paid Pro projects aren't paused for inactivity.
For a side project the Neon Free tier is the more generous one on paper. For a client demo that needs to be up on Monday morning after a quiet week, it's worth reading both inactivity rules first.
Branching: do branches carry data?
They do on Neon and they don't by default on Supabase. It's a difference some comparison pages get wrong.
Neon's branching docs describe copy-on-write branches that are "created with all of the data that existed in the parent branch". You can branch from a past state and reset a branch to its parent. How far back you can go depends on the history window: 6 hours on Free, up to 7 days on Launch and up to 30 days on Scale. Branch limits are 10 on Free and Launch and 25 on Scale.
Supabase's branching docs say a branch is a clone of the main project's configuration and "new branches do not start with any data or storage objects". You seed them with a seed file, or tick "Include data" in the dashboard. Persistent branches are available for staging, and the docs say the GitHub deploy integration works on any plan. Branching itself is a paid feature: the pricing page lists it on Pro and Team, at $0.01344 per branch-hour on Pro, with point-in-time recovery at $100 a month per 7 days.
Note what the Supabase docs don't say: branches aren't forced to be schema-only. Data is optional, not forbidden.
Why it matters: a branch per pull request with production-shaped data catches migration bugs that an empty schema won't. It also means copying personal data into dev environments, which is a GDPR question your DPO should see before you turn it on.
EU regions and GDPR: where does your data sit?
Neon's regions page lists Frankfurt (aws-eu-central-1) as the EU option and London (aws-eu-west-2), which isn't in the EU. The Azure regions are deprecated, and the page says no new projects can be created in them. The page also says a project's region can't be changed after creation. To move, you migrate.
Supabase's regions documentation lists four regions in EU member states: Ireland (eu-west-1), Paris (eu-west-3), Frankfurt (eu-central-1) and Stockholm (eu-north-1). London (eu-west-2) and Zurich (eu-central-2) aren't in the EU. The page says the general Europe option may land you in London or Zurich, so pick a named region. It also states: "Region selection is a data-location control, not proof of regulatory compliance."
Neon's regions page makes no GDPR or data processing agreement statement, so a region name alone tells your security reviewer nothing about contracts.
One more fact to put to your data protection officer: Neon's pricing page presents the product as "built around Lakebase Postgres" and "from Databricks". That's a fact to raise with your DPO, not a conclusion. Whether it matters depends on your contracts and your customers' requirements. This isn't legal advice.
For Supabase, the pricing page lists SOC2 and ISO 27001 on the Team plan and HIPAA as a paid add-on. Neon's pricing page lists SOC 2 and HIPAA as Scale-plan features, and its regions page makes no GDPR or DPA statement; ask Neon for its current documents.
On Neon the region can't be changed after creation, so moving means a migration. Supabase's regions page doesn't say, so check before you assume. Either way, pick the region on day one.
Lock-in and Neon's Databricks branding
Both are Postgres, so your data moves. That's the real exit on either platform, and it's why this comparison is less dramatic than Firebase's. The self-hosting limits for Supabase are in our Supabase against Firebase for an MVP backend piece: you can run it yourself, but branching, managed backups and PITR and some other managed features aren't available when you do.
The lock-in that costs you time is the platform services around the database: Supabase Auth and its row-level security policies, or Neon's branching workflow if your CI is built around it.
Neon now frames itself as from Databricks on its pricing page. Does Neon being presented as "from Databricks" matter to you? That depends on how much of your roadmap rests on Neon-specific features. Our judgment: read the terms and ask about the roadmap at renewal, and keep your schema and migrations in plain SQL so a move stays a data migration.
If you're still choosing the database engine itself, our notes on choosing PostgreSQL over MySQL and on documents versus tables come first.
Neon vs Supabase at a glance
| Criterion | Neon | Supabase |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Postgres, plus Auth, Object Storage, Functions and AI Gateway by region | Postgres plus bundled Auth, storage and Edge Functions |
| Entry plan | Free, $0, 100 projects | Free, $0, 2 active projects |
| Paid pricing shape | Usage-based: $0.106 or $0.222 per CU-hour, $0.35 per GB-month, no monthly minimum | Tier plus overage: Pro from $25, Team from $599 |
| Free pause or deletion | Scale-to-zero after 5 minutes; inactive 90+ days subject to deletion from 5 October 2026 | Paused after 1 week of inactivity |
| Branches carry data | Yes, by default | No by default; seed file or "Include data" |
| EU regions | Frankfurt (London is not EU) | Ireland, Paris, Frankfurt, Stockholm (London, Zurich are not EU) |
| Auth and storage in-platform | Yes, varies by region | Yes |
| Compliance claims on page | Pricing page: SOC 2 and HIPAA on Scale; regions page: no GDPR or DPA statement | Team plan: SOC2, ISO 27001; regions page: data-location control only |
Who do you need to hire for each?
This section is judgment. We have no hiring-market figures for either platform.
A Neon build needs a solid Postgres engineer who also knows your application framework and ORM, and who handles migrations well. Auth and storage are yours to build or buy, though Neon now offers Better Auth in some regions.
A Supabase build needs that same person to be comfortable with the Supabase client, Edge Functions and, above all, writing row-level security policies that don't leak. Those are Supabase-specific skills on top of SQL.
The mismatches to avoid: hiring a framework generalist who has never written a policy for a Supabase product, or expecting a Supabase specialist to run a Neon setup where they have to build the auth layer themselves.
What this means for choosing your Postgres platform
Decide three things before you pick. First, where the backend logic lives. If your team writes the API and owns auth, Neon is a database and little more. If you want the vendor to supply auth, storage and functions, you're choosing Supabase's backend, with its conventions. Second, which EU region you pin on day one. On Neon the region can't be changed after creation, so moving means a migration; Supabase's regions page doesn't say, so check before you assume. Third, which bill grows with your usage. Neon's grows with compute hours and storage. Supabase's grows with the tier, then overage.
Run your last month of real activity through both pricing pages before the call with either sales team. Whichever you pick, keep migrations in plain SQL so leaving stays a data move.
Once you've chosen, the next question is who builds on it. Screening for SQL and Postgres skills covers what to test.
FAQ
Is Neon better than Supabase?
Neither wins in general. As a judgment: Neon suits a team that already has its application layer and wants a Postgres database with data-carrying branches and usage billing. Supabase suits a team that wants auth, storage and functions from the same vendor. The criteria table above shows which situation points where.
Is Neon free?
Yes, there's a Free plan at $0 with 100 projects, 100 CU-hours and 1 GB per project, and 10 branches, per Neon's pricing page. Free projects inactive for 90 days or more are subject to deletion from 5 October 2026. Supabase Free offers a 500 MB database and 2 active projects, and pauses them after 1 week of inactivity, with no branching or point-in-time recovery.
Is Supabase GDPR compliant, and can I keep data in the EU?
You can choose a region in an EU member state on both. Supabase has Ireland, Paris, Frankfurt and Stockholm, while Neon has Frankfurt. London is not in the EU on either, and Supabase's docs say region selection "is a data-location control, not proof of regulatory compliance". Neon's regions page makes no GDPR statement. Compliance depends on your contracts and how you process data, so check with your DPO.
Can I move between them?
Yes, since both are Postgres, but plan it as a data migration. If you use Supabase Auth and RLS, those parts need replacing. We have no sourced cost or time figure, so be wary of anyone quoting one.
Which is easier to hire for?
No source we used measures it. Both need Postgres skills. Supabase adds RLS policy writing and its client and functions, and Neon puts more of the application layer on your team. Ask a recruiter for real candidate numbers in your location and seniority range.