Neon

Neon is what Postgres looks like in the serverless era. The auto-scaling is seamless — your database spins down when idle and scales up instantly when traffic comes in. For a side project, this means you're not paying for idle database time.

Database branching is the killer feature. You can create a copy of your production database for testing or development, complete with its own connection string. It's like git branches for your data.

The cold start can be a bit annoying — first query after idle takes 1-3 seconds. If you need sub-second responses at all times, enable always-on compute (costs a few dollars/month).

**Neon vs Supabase — Billing Philosophy**: The core difference is in how they charge. Neon is true serverless — you pay for "active compute time" in 5-minute minimum increments. Any activity (a health check, a connection probe) wakes the database and triggers a 5-minute billing cycle. This can lead to "phantom bills" where you're paying for compute time you didn't intentionally use. Supabase's free tier, by contrast, gives you a Docker-based instance that runs 24/7 — no cold starts, no per-activity billing. It only pauses after 7 full days of zero traffic. For low-traffic apps with occasional requests, Supabase is generally more predictable and less stressful on the free tier.