Supabase vs PlanetScale for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Supabase Overview

Supabase gives you a PostgreSQL database bundled with auth, file storage, edge functions, real-time subscriptions, and auto-generated REST APIs. It's a complete backend-as-a-service that happens to run on the most reliable database engine in the industry. You can go from zero to a functioning backend in under ten minutes.

The free tier is genuinely useful. 500MB of database storage, 1GB of file storage, 50,000 monthly active auth users, and enough bandwidth for side projects and MVPs. I've built and launched products on Supabase's free tier without hitting limits until real paying customers showed up.

Row-level security is the feature that makes Supabase work as a direct frontend-to-database platform. Define access policies at the database level, and your frontend can query the database directly through the auto-generated API. No backend server needed for basic operations. For a solo developer, that's an enormous amount of code you don't have to write.

PlanetScale Overview

PlanetScale is serverless MySQL built on Vitess, the same technology that powers YouTube's database layer. The standout feature is database branching. Like git branches for your schema, you can create a branch, make schema changes, and merge them back into production with zero downtime. No locking tables, no maintenance windows.

PlanetScale used to have a free Hobby tier, but they deprecated it. They went further since this post first ran. The serverless Scaler plan was removed as a product option on 2026-02-12, existing Scaler customers were given two months to move, and what was Scaler Pro at $39/month has been folded into a resource-based model and renamed the Base plan. Pricing is now per instance size rather than per plan name. The cheapest managed Postgres SKU (PS-5, non-HA) starts at $5/month, and the MySQL Base tier still lands around $39/month. There is no free tier of any kind. For a solo developer evaluating tools, that is a meaningful gap against Supabase's free tier. You are paying from day one, even for side projects and experiments.

Worth flagging for anyone arriving from an older article: PlanetScale is no longer MySQL-only. They now run a managed Postgres line alongside the Vitess-backed MySQL product, so the old "Supabase has Postgres, PlanetScale has MySQL" framing is softer than it used to be. The bigger structural difference is that Supabase bundles a backend and PlanetScale sells you a database.

The non-blocking schema change workflow is genuinely impressive. Traditional MySQL migrations lock tables during alterations. PlanetScale applies schema changes without any downtime. For production databases with heavy traffic, this is a real benefit. Whether a solo developer needs it is another question.

Key Differences

Database engine. Supabase runs PostgreSQL. PlanetScale started as a MySQL platform on Vitess and has since added a managed Postgres line, so you can now run either engine there. The real distinction in 2026 is not the engine, it is the surface area. Supabase wraps Postgres in a full backend, while PlanetScale gives you a database and expects you to bring the rest. If you specifically want PlanetScale's Vitess-backed MySQL scaling, you take MySQL's weaker handling of things like JSONB and array columns as part of that trade.

Free tier. Supabase has one. PlanetScale doesn't, not since the Hobby tier was deprecated and the serverless Scaler plan was removed on 2026-02-12. For solo developers experimenting, prototyping, or running side projects, this is a significant factor. Supabase lets you build for free until your project proves itself. PlanetScale charges from the start, from $5/month for its cheapest single-node Postgres SKU up to about $39/month for the MySQL Base tier.

Scope of service. Supabase is a platform. Database, auth, file storage, real-time, edge functions. PlanetScale is purely a database. If you need auth or file storage alongside PlanetScale, you're adding separate services and paying for each one. Supabase bundles everything together.

Schema changes. PlanetScale's branching and non-blocking schema changes are best-in-class for MySQL. Supabase handles migrations through standard PostgreSQL tools (or their built-in migration system). For solo developers, Supabase's approach is simpler. PlanetScale's workflow is more powerful but adds complexity that most small projects don't need.

Foreign keys. PlanetScale historically didn't support foreign key constraints (due to Vitess limitations). They've since added support, but it's worth noting. Supabase and PostgreSQL have had full foreign key support forever. If referential integrity matters to you, Supabase never had this caveat.

Pricing trajectory. Supabase Pro is $25/month and includes auth, storage, and a larger database. PlanetScale's MySQL Base tier is about $39/month for just the database, and its cheapest Postgres SKU is $5/month for a single non-HA node, again database only. If you need the features Supabase bundles, the price gap widens once you add auth and storage services to whichever PlanetScale tier you pick.

By the Numbers (2026)

All figures checked on 2026-05-29 against vendor pages and public registries. Sources are listed at the end.

Supabase

• Free plan: $0/month, 500 MB database, 1 GB file storage, 50,000 monthly active users, 5 GB egress. Projects pause after one week of inactivity.
• Pro plan: $25/month. Includes 8 GB database disk per project (then $0.125 per GB), 100 GB file storage (then $0.0213 per GB), 100,000 MAU (then $0.00325 per MAU), 250 GB egress (then $0.09 per GB), and a $10/month compute credit.
• Team plan: $599/month, same per-unit overage rates as Pro with org-level features.
• SDK: @supabase/supabase-js v2.106.2, roughly 19,829,221 npm downloads in the last week.
• Open source: supabase/supabase carries about 103,192 GitHub stars.

PlanetScale

• No free tier. The Hobby tier was deprecated and the serverless Scaler plan was removed on 2026-02-12.
• Managed Postgres starts at $5/month (PS-5, single-node non-HA, 1/16 vCPU, 512 MiB memory). The HA variant of the same SKU is about $15/month.
• The former Scaler Pro tier (MySQL) sits around $39/month and has been renamed the Base plan under the resource-based model.
• Pricing scales by instance size from there, for example PS-80 (1 vCPU, 8 GiB) at roughly $148 to $179/month for the HA Postgres configuration.
• SDK: @planetscale/database v1.20.1, roughly 189,414 npm downloads in the last week.
• Engine: the Vitess project (vitessio/vitess) that powers PlanetScale's MySQL line carries about 21,000 GitHub stars.

The download gap is the loudest signal here. The Supabase JS client pulls roughly 105 times the weekly installs of the PlanetScale driver. That is partly because Supabase ships one SDK for the whole platform while PlanetScale's serverless driver is one narrow option among ordinary MySQL and Postgres clients, but it still maps to a much larger and more active solo-developer footprint around Supabase.

Real Cost at Solo-Dev Scale

Take a realistic small project. A side product with a 1 GB database, around 5,000 monthly active users for auth, a few GB of uploaded files, and modest traffic well under 100 GB of egress per month.

On Supabase, that workload fits entirely inside the Free plan. The only caveat is the one-week inactivity pause, which matters for a dormant experiment but not for anything with daily users. The moment you want the pause gone, a custom domain, daily backups, or headroom past the free ceilings, you move to Pro at a flat $25/month and the same workload still sits comfortably under every included quota (8 GB database, 100,000 MAU, 100 GB storage, 250 GB egress). So the honest range for this project on Supabase is $0 to $25/month.

On PlanetScale there is no $0 option. The cheapest entry is the PS-5 managed Postgres SKU at $5/month for a single non-HA node (1/16 vCPU, 512 MiB RAM). That is genuinely cheap, but it is just a database. You still need auth and file storage from somewhere, so add a service for those. The MySQL Base tier (the old Scaler Pro) runs about $39/month before you bolt anything on.

The computed picture for that workload:

• Supabase, everything bundled: $0/month on Free, or $25/month on Pro.
• PlanetScale Postgres PS-5, database only: $5/month, plus a separate auth provider and a separate file-storage bill.
• PlanetScale MySQL Base, database only: about $39/month, again plus separate auth and storage.

If you only count the database line item, PlanetScale's $5 PS-5 undercuts Supabase Pro. Once you add back the auth and storage that Supabase includes for free at this scale, the total cost of the PlanetScale stack lands at or above Supabase Pro, and well above Supabase Free. For a solo developer who values one bill and one SDK, Supabase is cheaper in practice for this size of project, not just simpler.

When to Choose Supabase

• You want a complete backend without writing backend code
• You need auth, file storage, and real-time alongside your database
• You want to start for free and only pay when your project has traction
• You prefer PostgreSQL over MySQL
• You're building a frontend-heavy app that talks directly to the database

When to Choose PlanetScale

• You're committed to MySQL for your project
• You need non-blocking schema changes for a high-traffic production database
• Database branching for schema development is important to your workflow
• You're already using Vitess or have MySQL expertise
• You don't need auth, storage, or real-time from your database provider

The Verdict

For solo developers, Supabase wins this comparison convincingly. The rating gap (10/10 vs 6/10) tells the story.

Supabase gives you more features, a lower starting price, a free tier for experimentation, and runs on PostgreSQL. PlanetScale gives you MySQL with excellent branching and schema change tooling, but at a higher price and without the bundled services that solo developers benefit from.

PlanetScale's strengths (non-blocking schema changes, Vitess-powered scaling) solve problems that large teams and high-traffic applications face. Solo developers rarely need zero-downtime schema migrations because they can deploy during low-traffic periods. The branching is nice, but Neon offers similar branching on PostgreSQL with a free tier.

My recommendation: choose Supabase. You get a bundled backend, more features, a generous free tier, and a flat $25/month paid tier that covers a real side project end to end. The strongest reasons to choose PlanetScale are if your project specifically needs Vitess-backed MySQL scaling or non-blocking schema branching on heavy traffic, or if you genuinely want a raw, resource-priced database and nothing else. For everything else at solo-dev scale, Supabase is the smarter pick.

Sources

• Supabase pricing (Free, Pro, Team tiers, storage, MAU, egress, overage rates), checked 2026-05-29: https://supabase.com/pricing
• PlanetScale pricing (resource-based SKUs, Postgres from $5/month, no free tier), checked 2026-05-29: https://planetscale.com/pricing
• PlanetScale "Deprecating the Scaler plan" (2026-02-12 removal date, migration window, rename to Base), checked 2026-05-29: https://planetscale.com/blog/deprecating-the-scaler-plan
• PlanetScale Hobby plan deprecation FAQ, checked 2026-05-29: https://planetscale.com/docs/plans/hobby-plan-deprecation-faq
• @supabase/supabase-js version 2.106.2 (npm registry), checked 2026-05-29: https://registry.npmjs.org/@supabase/supabase-js/latest
• @supabase/supabase-js weekly downloads (npm API), checked 2026-05-29: https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-week/@supabase/supabase-js
• @planetscale/database version 1.20.1 (npm registry), checked 2026-05-29: https://registry.npmjs.org/@planetscale/database/latest
• @planetscale/database weekly downloads (npm API), checked 2026-05-29: https://api.npmjs.org/downloads/point/last-week/@planetscale/database
• supabase/supabase GitHub stars, checked 2026-05-29: https://github.com/supabase/supabase
• vitessio/vitess GitHub stars (engine behind PlanetScale MySQL), checked 2026-05-29: https://github.com/vitessio/vitess