PlanetScale's decision to remove its free tier in 2024 was one of the most discussed moves in the developer tools space. The backlash was immediate and significant - developers migrated to Supabase, Neon, and Turso, and PlanetScale lost its position as the default recommendation for serverless MySQL. The return of a free tier is an attempt to reverse that trend.
The new hobby plan is intentionally constrained. One database, one branch, 1GB storage, and 1 billion row reads per month. There is no database branching (the feature that originally differentiated PlanetScale), no automated backups, and no analytics dashboard. It is enough to run a personal project or prototype but not enough for a production application. This is a deliberate choice - PlanetScale wants developers to start for free and upgrade when they need production features.
Whether this is enough to win back developers depends on the competitive landscape. Supabase offers a more generous free tier with Postgres, auth, storage, and edge functions included. Neon provides serverless Postgres with branching on its free tier. PlanetScale's advantage remains its MySQL compatibility and Vitess-based horizontal scaling, which matters for teams with existing MySQL infrastructure or those planning for massive scale. For new projects starting fresh, the Postgres ecosystem has pulled ahead.
The PlanetScale free tier is worth considering if you specifically need MySQL, but for new projects, Supabase or Neon offer more on their free tiers.
