Supabase vs PlanetScale: Full Comparison in 2025

The database you pick affects how you build, scale, and manage your app. Supabase gives you a PostgreSQL backend with built-in authentication, storage, and realtime updates. PlanetScale offers a MySQL-compatible database powered by Vitess, designed for high-scale applications and branching workflows.

Let’s look at their features, strengths, and ideal use cases to see which fits your project.

Why Compare Supabase & PlanetScale?

Teams evaluating backend options often look at Supabase and PlanetScale. Supabase provides a backend built on PostgreSQL with built-in features like authentication, storage, and realtime updates. PlanetScale offers a MySQL-compatible database powered by Vitess, designed for apps that need to handle large scale and branching workflows.

Both can scale without managing servers, but they work best in different scenarios and follow different workflows.

What Is Supabase?

Supabase provides an open-source Firebase alternative built entirely on PostgreSQL. The platform bundles database, authentication, storage, realtime functionality, and edge functions into a unified product. You get a full backend rather than just database hosting.

Core Features & Architecture

Supabase runs on PostgreSQL, extended with features that cover common backend needs. It generates REST and GraphQL APIs automatically from your schema, and its realtime engine sends database changes over WebSockets. Authentication supports email/password, OAuth, and magic links. Storage includes Row-Level Security, and Edge Functions run TypeScript on Deno at edge locations. All of this integrates through a single dashboard and SDK.

Use Cases & Ideal Projects

Full-stack apps benefit from having database, auth, storage, and realtime in one place. MVPs and prototypes ship faster, and bootstrapped products save on multiple subscriptions. Realtime apps like collaborative editors or chat systems make use of WebSocket updates. SQL-heavy projects with joins, JSON operations, or full-text search fit naturally.

Strengths (Pros)

Supabase is open source, so you can self-host or inspect the code. PostgreSQL provides advanced SQL capabilities. 

Its free tier includes 500MB database and 1GB storage, enough for side projects and early MVPs. Local development mirrors production through Docker, and the dashboard allows direct SQL access and table editing.

Limitations (Cons)

For extremely large deployments, PostgreSQL may require additional planning for horizontal scaling, such as read replicas or sharding. Some advanced database features require knowledge of PostgreSQL internals to use effectively. Enterprise compliance and support options are less developed compared to established cloud providers.

What Is PlanetScale?

PlanetScale is a serverless database platform providing highly scalable MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. Built on the open-source Vitess database clustering system, PlanetScale is designed for developers and DevOps teams to manage large-scale applications with features like non-blocking schema changes and horizontal sharding.

Core Features & Architecture

PlanetScale uses Vitess to scale MySQL horizontally while keeping a single connection endpoint. It handles routing, sharding, and balancing automatically, supporting large datasets and high query loads. For PostgreSQL, PlanetScale runs on its Metal infrastructure, using NVMe SSDs for high performance and built-in failover, buffering, and pooling via PgBouncer.

Schema branching works like Git - developers can test schema changes safely and merge to production without downtime. The team is also developing Neki, a new open-source sharding system for PostgreSQL.

Use Cases & Ideal Projects

PlanetScale fits applications that expect heavy traffic or need zero-downtime schema changes. It’s well-suited for MySQL-based systems requiring reliable scaling or PostgreSQL workloads that benefit from Metal’s performance. Teams managing production databases at scale or integrating schema changes into CI/CD pipelines get the most value.

Strengths (Pros)

Schema branching avoids table locks and downtime. Vitess handles horizontal scaling for large MySQL workloads. The platform includes continuous backups, performance insights, and enterprise-grade compliance like SOC 2, PCI DSS, and HIPAA. PlanetScale Metal delivers fast performance with NVMe storage and high IOPS.

Limitations (Cons)

PlanetScale focuses strictly on databases, so other backend features like auth or storage need separate tools. While Vitess is open source, the managed service itself isn’t. 

Pricing starts at $34 per month, and there’s no free plan. PostgreSQL sharding through Neki is still in development.

Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Database Engine & Compatibility (PostgreSQL vs MySQL)

Supabase runs standard PostgreSQL with full access to features like JSONB, window functions, and extensions such as PostGIS or pg_vector.

PlanetScale supports MySQL with Vitess for horizontal sharding and PostgreSQL on its Metal infrastructure. Vitess scales automatically but limits some MySQL features like foreign key constraints. The PostgreSQL option is standard Postgres for now, with sharding (Neki) still in development.

PostgreSQL offers a richer SQL toolset, while MySQL with Vitess handles massive scale more easily.

Scalability & Performance

PlanetScale scales horizontally through Vitess, distributing data across multiple MySQL instances. It supports billions of rows with low-latency NVMe storage on Metal (around 5–10ms p95 latency).

Supabase scales PostgreSQL vertically and through read replicas. Most projects run fine out of the box, though very large systems need extra tuning or architecture work.

PlanetScale wins on large-scale throughput, while Supabase shines with complex relational queries.

Schema Changes & Branching Workflow

PlanetScale’s branching works like Git - create, modify, test, and merge schema changes without downtime.

Supabase uses SQL migration files. It’s more manual but gives full control over database changes.

Developer Experience & Tooling

Supabase includes a SQL editor, data viewer, and CLI for local development with Docker. You can run the whole stack locally.

PlanetScale’s CLI manages branches, schema changes, and deploys. It integrates well with CI/CD workflows and offers detailed query insights.

Supabase favors full-stack simplicity; PlanetScale favors fine-grained database control.

Built-in Services & Ecosystem

Supabase bundles auth, storage, realtime, and edge functions - everything in one platform.

PlanetScale focuses on the database only. You’ll connect third-party tools for auth, storage, and functions.

Pricing & Free Tiers

Supabase offers 500MB database storage, 1GB file storage, and 2GB bandwidth free. Paid plans start at $25 monthly with increased limits. Costs scale based on database size, compute, and bandwidth. The Pro plan includes $10 compute credits.

PlanetScale no longer offers free plans. The Scaler Pro tier starts at $34 monthly for a high-availability cluster with 10GB storage across three nodes. Additional storage costs $0.50 per GB per instance (minimum 3 instances for production). PlanetScale Metal provides superior performance but costs more than standard storage.

Both platforms scale pricing with usage. Supabase's bundled services can reduce overall costs if you need multiple backend features. PlanetScale's pricing works well for database-focused workloads with predictable access patterns.

Security, Backups & Reliability

Supabase implements Row-Level Security through PostgreSQL's native capabilities. You define access rules in SQL that enforce at the database level. Daily backups come standard, with point-in-time recovery on paid plans. SOC 2 Type II certification covers security controls.

PlanetScale encrypts data at rest and in transit. Continuous backups enable point-in-time recovery to any second. The platform holds SOC 2, PCI DSS Level 1, and HIPAA compliance certifications. High-availability clusters deploy across three availability zones automatically. The SLA commitment reaches 99.999% for multi-region deployments.

When to Use Supabase vs PlanetScale

For MVPs, Prototypes & Small Apps

Use Supabase when speed matters. It gives you auth, storage, and database in one place, so you can build fast without juggling tools. The free tier covers early-stage needs. Apps needing realtime updates or JSON-heavy queries fit well with its PostgreSQL base.

For High-Scale, Production Systems

PlanetScale is built for projects expecting heavy traffic or large datasets. Its architecture handles horizontal scaling and schema changes without downtime, which becomes important as your system grows. Teams already using MySQL or PostgreSQL will find it easy to integrate.

Real-World Use

PlanetScale reports their infrastructure handling over 1 million queries per second in production deployments. Teams like Cursor rely on it for demanding workloads, often seeing latency drop from around 45ms to under 10ms after migration.

Pebblely, a fast-growing AI startup, scaled to over a million users in seven months using Supabase’s all-in-one platform. They leaned on Supabase Auth and the database integration, which worked smoothly enough that they didn’t need to consider other options.

Both platforms include tools to analyze queries and spot performance bottlenecks early.

Getting Started

Start with what fits your needs today. Supabase is easy to set up and great for prototypes or smaller apps that need built-in auth, storage, and realtime features.

PlanetScale takes more setup but excels at scale and uptime, especially for teams managing heavy traffic or complex schemas.

You can also connect with our experts to plan, build, and scale reliable infrastructure for your applications.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I migrate from Supabase to PlanetScale or vice versa?

Yes, since both now offer PostgreSQL. Migration involves exporting your database schema and data, then updating connection strings and application code. The challenge is migrating Supabase-specific features like Row-Level Security, authentication, and storage, which don't exist in PlanetScale. PlanetScale provides migration guides for importing from other Postgres providers.

Can I self-host either platform?

Supabase is fully open source and supports self-hosting via Docker. PlanetScale's managed platform is proprietary, though Vitess (for MySQL) is open source. Self-hosting Vitess requires significant operational expertise.

Which platform is better for real-time applications?

Supabase has built-in realtime through PostgreSQL's replication streaming over WebSockets. PlanetScale focuses on database functionality only, requiring separate tools like Pusher or custom WebSocket servers for realtime features.

Does PlanetScale support PostgreSQL extensions?

Yes. PlanetScale for Postgres supports native extensions including pg_vector for embeddings, PostGIS for geospatial data, and other common extensions. Check their documentation for the complete list.

What happens if I exceed my plan limits?

Supabase Pro has a spend cap enabled by default. Disable it to pay for overages or upgrade plans. PlanetScale uses resource-based pricing where you scale instance sizes and storage as needed without hard limits.