PlanetScale vs Upstash Redis — free-tier comparison
This comparison is calculated from verified service fields. It is not presented as an editorial review and remains excluded from the index until reviewed.
At a glance
Upstash Redis: Most generous free tier
Database
Free Hobby plan discontinued; current plans start with paid development databases
Paid from $5/month
- Free Hobby plan discontinued
- Paid development databases start around $5/month
- Vitess and Postgres products available
- Serverless MySQL that scales on Vitess
- Git-like database branching with non-blocking schema changes
- The free Hobby tier was discontinued in April 2024
Best for
- Teams that need MySQL at scale
- Schema changes without downtime
Database
One free database with 256 MB data, 500,000 commands/month and 10 GB monthly bandwidth
Paid from Usage-based at $0.20/100K commands; storage and bandwidth charges may apply
- REST and Redis clients
- No card needed for the free tier
- HTTP access suits serverless functions
- No Redis server to administer
- Free databases may be archived after at least 30 days of inactivity; restoration uses a backup
Best for
- API response caches
- Rate limiting
The catch?
PlanetScale
- Free tier discontinued
- Credit card required
- Overage auto-bills
- Some constraints remain unconfirmed
Upstash Redis
- Pauses when idle
- Some constraints remain unconfirmed
Detailed comparison
| PlanetScale | Upstash Redis | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier & pricing | ||
| Free tier ↑ better | Discontinued | Perpetual ★ |
| Paid from ↓ better | $5/mo | Usage-based |
| Regions ↑ better | — | — |
| Database | ||
| Storage ↑ better | — | 256 MB |
| Branches ↑ better | — | — |
FAQ
No. PlanetScale discontinued its free Hobby plan in April 2024; current public pricing starts with paid development databases.
It lets you branch your schema like Git, make non-blocking changes on a dev branch, and merge them to production via a deploy request — without locking tables.
No. It is a command-unit price. Paid storage and bandwidth have separate rules, so the bill depends on usage.
Free databases can be archived after inactivity. Upstash documents advance emails and a backup that can be restored into a new database.