Managed Postgres vs Managed MySQL: RDS, Aurora, Neon, Supabase, PlanetScale (2026)
Vendor-neutral comparison. Pricing verified against provider pages, April 2026. Note: cloud pricing changes frequently; verify before committing.
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| Provider | Engines | Pricing model | Distinguishing feature | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS RDS | Postgres + MySQL | Per-instance-hour + storage | Mature, multi-engine, Multi-AZ, easy upgrade paths | Default AWS deployment |
| AWS Aurora | Postgres + MySQL | Per-instance-hour + per-IO | Shared storage cluster, fast failover, Aurora Serverless v2 | Scale within AWS without managing storage |
| Google Cloud SQL | Postgres + MySQL | Per-instance-hour + storage | GCP-native integration, IAM auth, point-in-time recovery | Default GCP deployment |
| Azure Database | Postgres + MySQL | Per-vCore + storage | Azure-native integration, Microsoft Entra auth, Business Continuity | Default Azure deployment |
| Neon | Postgres only | Compute + storage (free tier available) | Branching workflows (create a DB branch per PR), scale to zero | Postgres-first dev teams who want Git-style DB workflows |
| Supabase | Postgres only | Per-project + add-ons (free tier) | Postgres + Auth + Realtime + Storage in one stack | Teams wanting an open-source Firebase alternative |
| Crunchy Bridge | Postgres only | Per-hour + storage | Built by core Postgres contributors (Crunchy Data) | Senior DBA Postgres teams; no surprises |
| Aiven | Postgres + MySQL + others | Per-hour + storage | Multi-cloud, multi-engine platform | Multi-cloud teams who want a single vendor |
| EnterpriseDB BigAnimal | Postgres only | Enterprise (contact for pricing) | Oracle compatibility layer (Babelfish-style), enterprise SLA | Oracle-to-Postgres migrations with enterprise support |
| PlanetScale | MySQL + Vitess | Per-storage + per-read/write row count | Vitess-based branching, no-locking schema changes, deploy requests | MySQL with production-grade online DDL and branching |
| MariaDB SkySQL | MariaDB | Enterprise (contact for pricing) | First-party MariaDB cloud, HeatWave-alternative analytics | Teams committed to MariaDB with enterprise support |
| Oracle MySQL HeatWave | MySQL + HeatWave | Per-hour + per-feature on OCI | In-memory OLAP acceleration, ML/AutoML layer | OCI-committed analytics workloads |
Pricing verified April 2026. Verify against provider pricing pages before committing.
Decision summary
Already on AWS / GCP / Azure?
RDS / Cloud SQL / Azure Database. The default managed path on each cloud is mature, well-priced, and deeply integrated with other services. Start there unless you have a specific reason to use a specialist provider.
Want Postgres-native dev features (branching, auth, realtime)?
Neon (branching, scale to zero, Postgres) or Supabase (full backend stack on Postgres). Both have generous free tiers. Neon's branching per PR is a genuine developer workflow improvement.
Want MySQL with online schema changes and branching?
PlanetScale. Vitess-based, with deploy requests (schema change review flow) and no-locking DDL. Strong choice for MySQL teams who want modern DB development workflows.
Lock-in is your primary concern?
Crunchy Bridge (Postgres) or self-managed on any cloud. Crunchy Bridge is built by the Crunchy Data team who contribute upstream to PostgreSQL. You get the most portable Postgres deployment with strong enterprise support.