Supabase vs PlanetScale for App Backends

Supabase vs the alternative at a glance

Supabase is the more precisely documented backend platform in this comparison: a free tier built on real Postgres, and a $25/mo Pro tier with metered overage rather than hard usage cliffs. The fact sheet used to write this page only has verified Supabase pricing, so the table below states what's confirmed and flags where PlanetScale data isn't published. If you want a Postgres-based backend with predictable, metered pricing as you scale, Supabase is the side of this comparison we can vouch for with real numbers.

Pricing compared

Supabase's free tier includes a 500 MB database (shared CPU, 500 MB RAM), 1 GB file storage, 5 GB egress, and 50,000 monthly active users — a genuinely generous MAU allowance for a free plan, though the 500 MB database limit fills up quickly with any real data. The one real catch on free is that projects pause after 1 week of inactivity, which is disruptive for demos or low-traffic side projects that don't see daily usage.

Pro at $25/mo removes the pausing problem and raises the included limits to 8 GB disk, 100 GB storage, 250 GB egress, and 100,000 monthly active users. Past those included amounts, overages are metered rather than forcing an upgrade: $0.125 per GB of extra disk, $0.0213 per GB of extra storage, $0.09 per GB of extra egress, and $0.00325 per additional MAU beyond 100,000. That's a predictable floor with gradual scaling, though the jump from Pro at $25/mo to Team at $599/mo leaves a real gap with nothing in between for a growing team that isn't ready for Team-tier controls.

PlanetScale's pricing and plan structure aren't in the fact sheet used to write this page, so any cost comparison against Supabase here would be guessing. If PlanetScale's current pricing is a deciding factor, check its pricing page directly before committing.

Where Supabase is stronger

Supabase's core structural advantage is that it's genuinely Postgres under the hood, not a proprietary database with a Postgres-like interface. That means you can connect any standard Postgres client or ORM, run raw SQL, and avoid the kind of data-layer lock-in that comes with a custom query language — if you ever want to migrate off Supabase, your data model and queries are portable in a way a proprietary engine's aren't.

50,000 monthly active users on the free tier is far more generous than most BaaS platforms offer at no cost, and Pro's metered overage model means you're not forced into a step-function price jump the moment you exceed an included limit. If you're evaluating Supabase against other backend-as-a-service options, our Supabase vs Firebase and Appwrite vs Supabase comparisons cover how it stacks up outside this specific matchup, and our Supabase pricing explained guide breaks down every free-tier limit in more depth.

Where the alternative is stronger

PlanetScale is generally positioned around MySQL-compatible database branching and schema change workflows, giving teams a git-like way to test and deploy schema migrations without downtime — a specific operational capability that's a meaningful draw for teams doing frequent schema changes on a production database.

Because the fact sheet does not document PlanetScale's pricing tiers, storage limits, or feature gating between plans, this comparison can't state specific costs or free-tier limits for PlanetScale. That's a meaningful gap: any "Supabase vs PlanetScale" verdict that quotes PlanetScale numbers without checking its current pricing page directly should be treated with caution, since database platform pricing changes fairly often.

If your team specifically wants MySQL compatibility or PlanetScale's branching workflow for schema changes, that's a real product-shape argument worth weighing — but it's a workflow decision, not a pricing one, and it's outside what the verified data here can settle.

Which one should you pick?

Pick Supabase if you want documented, predictable pricing, a genuinely Postgres-based backend with no proprietary lock-in, and a generous free-tier MAU allowance. It's also the safer default if metered, gradual overage billing matters more to you than a hard plan-tier structure.

Pick PlanetScale only after confirming its current pricing and limits directly with the vendor, since none of that is in the fact sheet used for this page. If your team specifically needs MySQL compatibility or its schema-branching workflow, the calculus may favor PlanetScale regardless of price; if you want Postgres and documented, predictable pricing, Supabase's verified numbers make it the easier recommendation here. For a broader look at backend options beyond just these two, see our Firebase alternatives roundup.