Neon Has a Free Serverless PostgreSQL: Branching, Autoscaling, and Scale-to-Zero for Modern Apps

RDS charges $30/month for the smallest PostgreSQL instance — even when nobody's using it. Supabase is great but opinionated. PlanetScale was MySQL-only and shut down its free tier. What if PostgreSQL scaled to zero when idle, branched like Git, and cost nothing for side projects? That's Neon. Free Tier 0.5 GB storage 1 project, 10 branches Autoscaling 0.25-2 compute units Scale to zero — $0 when not in use Key Features Database Branching # Create a branch for testing — instant copy, no data duplication neonctl branches create --name staging --parent main # Each branch gets its own connection string # Test migrations on staging without touching production Serverless Driver (HTTP) import { neon } from " @neondatabase/serverless " ; const sql = neon ( process . env . DATABASE_URL ); // Works in Edge Functions, Workers, Lambda — no persistent connection needed const users = await sql `SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = true LIMIT 20` ; const user = await sql `INSERT INTO users (name, email