CockroachDB vs Neon
Pricing
CockroachDB: 30-day trial with $400 credit, then from $0.092 per vCPU-hour
Neon: Free tier, Pro from $19/mo
Description
CockroachDB: Distributed SQL database that survives outages, Postgres-compatible, with usage-based cloud pricing
Neon: Serverless Postgres that scales to zero: you only pay when your database is actually being used
Pros
- Postgres-compatible wire protocol: use your existing Postgres drivers and ORMs
- New cloud organizations get a 30-day trial with $400 of credit, no credit card needed for Standard
- Multi-region by design: your data survives zone and region failures automatically
- Scales to zero on the free tier: no cost when your app has no traffic
- Database branching for safe schema changes and testing
- Generous free tier with 0.5 GB storage and autoscaling
Cons
- No free tier for new customers: after the trial, Standard costs about $203/mo for 2 vCPUs and 100 GB
- Higher query latency than single-region Postgres (consensus overhead on every write)
- Overkill for most solo founder projects: distributed consistency adds complexity you rarely need
- Some Postgres features are missing or behave differently (limited extensions, partial full-text search functions)
- Cold starts on free tier add 1-2 seconds to the first query after inactivity
- Newer service than established options like RDS or Supabase
- Compute limits on free tier can bottleneck during traffic spikes
Details
CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database that speaks the Postgres wire protocol. Your existing Postgres drivers, ORMs, and queries work without changes. The key selling point is resilience: data is automatically replicated across nodes, so a zone going down does not take your database offline.
Cloud pricing for new deployments from 15 September 2026 is pay-as-you-go. Every new organization gets a 30-day trial with $400 of credit. After that, clusters pause until you add a payment method and are deleted after a 30-day grace period. The Standard edition costs $0.092 per vCPU-hour, about $203 a month for 2 vCPUs and 100 GB, and Mission Critical costs $0.162 per vCPU-hour. Existing customers stay on their current plans. For most solo founders this is more database than you need, both in cost and in write latency. For simpler use cases, Neon or Supabase give you standard Postgres with free tiers.
Neon is Postgres that disappears when you are not using it. On the free tier, your database scales to zero during quiet periods and wakes up when a request comes in. This means a side project that gets occasional traffic costs nothing, not $39/month like PlanetScale.
The tradeoff is cold starts: that first query after a period of inactivity takes a second or two while the database wakes up. For APIs and web apps, this is usually fine. For real-time applications, it might matter. The branching feature is great for testing migrations safely. If you want Postgres without paying for idle time, Neon is the best option right now.
CockroachDB verified
Neon verified
