Short version: Supabase suits a small team building a web app that wants postgres and auth without running either. Neon suits a team running preview environments that wants a throwaway database branch for every pull request.
Head to head
| Supabase | Neon | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Platforms | Web, CLI | Web |
| Best for | A small team building a web app that wants Postgres and auth without running either. | A team running preview environments that wants a throwaway database branch for every pull request. |
| Weakness | Free projects pause after inactivity, and row-level security policies take real effort to get right. | The free tier suspends idle databases and the first query afterwards is slow, and the branching model is a concept your team has to learn before it pays off. |
The verdict
Supabase is freemium; Neon is freemium. Beyond the price, the overlap is smaller than the landing pages imply — they solve different problems, and the comparison exists because people search for them in the same breath.
Where Supabase falls down: Free projects pause after inactivity, and row-level security policies take real effort to get right.
Where Neon falls down: The free tier suspends idle databases and the first query afterwards is slow, and the branching model is a concept your team has to learn before it pays off.
If you genuinely need both, you are the rare case where running two tools is cheaper than picking one badly.
Frequently asked
Is Supabase or Neon better?
Neither in general. Supabase fits a small team building a web app that wants postgres and auth without running either. Neon fits a team running preview environments that wants a throwaway database branch for every pull request. The weakness row in the table above is where they actually separate.
Is Neon cheaper than Supabase?
Supabase is freemium, Neon is freemium. The sticker price is rarely the bill — check the pricing section of each review.
Can I use both Supabase and Neon?
Plenty of teams do, usually with one as the system of record and the other for a specific workflow. It doubles the migration cost later, so pick a side before year two.