Neon
Serverless managed Postgres database service with branching and autoscaling compute.
HN commenters like Neon as managed Postgres that spares them from running a database themselves123, with lightweight branching, copy-on-write clones and instant restores.45 Caveats include a bill that can be overkill for small personal projects67, and dropped idle connections.8
Why people recommend it
No database ops · 3
Commenters use and recommend it as a managed service so they don't have to run a database.
“Neon so that I don't have to manage a database”
“I love Neon and think it's an incredible service”
Show 1 more
“Neon is a great solution..which fits a handful of use cases.”
Branching and restores · 2
Lightweight branching, copy-on-write clones and instant restores stand out.
“Neon is awesome, with lightweight branching and instant restores.”
“We use neon to do this since we think they've implemented those two properties well.”
Lower costs · 1
One commenter cut infra costs from $1200 to under $200/mo after moving from Heroku to Neon plus Hetzner.
“Neon is awesome, with lightweight branching and instant restores.”
Hard to replace · 1
A European founder cites it as a product with no close European equivalent.
“Just take a look at Neon Postgres as an example: where do you find a product like this in Europe?”
Caveats and dissent
Cost for small projects · 1
A $30/mo bill for mostly read-only personal software was called overkill.
“I love Neon and think it's an incredible service”
Narrow fit · 1
One commenter said it fits only a handful of use cases and cheap managed Postgres often suffices.
“Neon is a great solution..which fits a handful of use cases.”
Idle connections · 1
Neon drops idle connections, which apps need to handle.
“Neon Postgres (and probably other serverless DBs) drops idle connections”
Often compared with
Amazon Web ServicesWho recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“On the backend we use Drizzle with Neon, deployed and monitored via Vercel.”
“Neon also only just disabled FPWs”
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026) 3 mentions
- Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors 2 mentions
- Launch HN: Ardent (YC P26) – Postgres sandboxes in seconds with zero migration 2 mentions
- What if database branching was easy? 2 mentions
- Bunny Database 2 mentions
- Instant database clones with PostgreSQL 18 2 mentions
Also written as Neon Postgres. Data: neon.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 31
“Neon so that I don't have to manage a database”
“Postgres, Supabase/Neon/Render”
“Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Neon”
“PostgreSQL, Drizzle ORM, Neon”
“Managed Neon (Acquired by Databricks) also offers time travel”
“on a Cloudflare Workers + Hyperdrive + Neon backend”
“it should use the `@neondatabase/serverless` driver”
“I love Neon and think it's an incredible service”
“Vercel, Neon, Sentry”
“Neon is a great solution..which fits a handful of use cases.”
“Just take a look at Neon Postgres as an example: where do you find a product like this in Europe?”
“neondb for api key management”
“Vercel, Neon, Sentry.”
“We use neon to do this since we think they've implemented those two properties well.”
“If you are interested in having a Neon or git-like branching for PostgreSQL experience”
“as an alternative to Neon”
“It seemed pretty cool”
“a Postgres database hosted in Neon”
“Neon Postgres (and probably other serverless DBs) drops idle connections”
“we replaced pinecone and rds with neon under the hood”
“Built with Next.js 16, Clerk for auth, and Neon for the database.”
“for this reason actually I use Neon tech”
“Neon is awesome, with lightweight branching and instant restores.”
“They integrate with Neon”
“which all come with various downsides”
Neon is from Databricks. Here's their pricing page: https://neon.com/pricing
“You can provision a free Postgres instance with a single click: https://neon.new/”
“I've used Neon to do it for "live" integration environments”
“Obligatory mention of Neon (https://neon.com/)”
“used Neon as the db”
“Databricks Neon is the easiest to provision”