Tools: Breaking: Neon Has a Free Postgres — Serverless Database With Branching, Auto-Scaling, and 512MB Storage

Tools: Breaking: Neon Has a Free Postgres — Serverless Database With Branching, Auto-Scaling, and 512MB Storage

What You Get for Free

Quick Start

1. Create a Database

2. Node.js with Serverless Driver

3. Python

4. Prisma ORM

5. Database Branching (Killer Feature)

Real-World Use Case

Free Plan Limits

The Bottom Line

More Free APIs You Should Know About PostgreSQL is the best database for most applications. But hosting it yourself means managing backups, replication, connection pooling, and paying for an always-on server even when nobody is using your app. Neon gives you serverless Postgres — it scales to zero when idle and wakes up in milliseconds. The free tier includes 512MB storage, branching, and their serverless driver. Sign up at neon.tech, create a project, grab your connection string. No connection pooling setup. Works in Vercel Edge, Cloudflare Workers, Deno Deploy. Branches are copy-on-write — creating a branch from a 100GB database takes milliseconds and costs nothing until you write new data. A developer running a SaaS on Vercel told me: "My RDS instance was costing $30/month just to sit there at night when nobody used the app. Switched to Neon free tier — it scales to zero at night, wakes up in 200ms on the first request. My database bill went from $30 to $0." Neon is Postgres without the operations overhead. Scale to zero, branch like git, connect from edge functions. For side projects and early startups, the free tier is generous enough to get to production without spending a dollar. Need to scrape data into your Postgres database? Check out my web scraping tools on Apify — extract data from any website and export as CSV for easy COPY INTO. Building something custom? Email me at [email protected] Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse

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$ -weight: 500;">npm -weight: 500;">install @neondatabase/serverless -weight: 500;">npm -weight: 500;">install @neondatabase/serverless -weight: 500;">npm -weight: 500;">install @neondatabase/serverless import { neon } from "@neondatabase/serverless"; const sql = neon(process.env.DATABASE_URL); // Create table await sql`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users ( id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL, email TEXT UNIQUE NOT NULL, created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW() )`; // Insert await sql`INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES (${"Alex"}, ${"[email protected]"})`; // Query const users = await sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ${"Alex"}`; console.log(users); import { neon } from "@neondatabase/serverless"; const sql = neon(process.env.DATABASE_URL); // Create table await sql`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users ( id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL, email TEXT UNIQUE NOT NULL, created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW() )`; // Insert await sql`INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES (${"Alex"}, ${"[email protected]"})`; // Query const users = await sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ${"Alex"}`; console.log(users); import { neon } from "@neondatabase/serverless"; const sql = neon(process.env.DATABASE_URL); // Create table await sql`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS users ( id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY, name TEXT NOT NULL, email TEXT UNIQUE NOT NULL, created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT NOW() )`; // Insert await sql`INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES (${"Alex"}, ${"[email protected]"})`; // Query const users = await sql`SELECT * FROM users WHERE name = ${"Alex"}`; console.log(users); import psycopg2 conn = psycopg2.connect("postgresql://user:pass@ep-xyz.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/mydb?sslmode=require") cur = conn.cursor() cur.execute("SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = %s", ("[email protected]",)) users = cur.fetchall() conn.close() import psycopg2 conn = psycopg2.connect("postgresql://user:pass@ep-xyz.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/mydb?sslmode=require") cur = conn.cursor() cur.execute("SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = %s", ("[email protected]",)) users = cur.fetchall() conn.close() import psycopg2 conn = psycopg2.connect("postgresql://user:pass@ep-xyz.us-east-2.aws.neon.tech/mydb?sslmode=require") cur = conn.cursor() cur.execute("SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = %s", ("[email protected]",)) users = cur.fetchall() conn.close() // schema.prisma datasource db { provider = "postgresql" url = env("DATABASE_URL") } model User { id Int @id @default(autoincrement()) name String email String @unique } // schema.prisma datasource db { provider = "postgresql" url = env("DATABASE_URL") } model User { id Int @id @default(autoincrement()) name String email String @unique } // schema.prisma datasource db { provider = "postgresql" url = env("DATABASE_URL") } model User { id Int @id @default(autoincrement()) name String email String @unique } import { PrismaClient } from "@prisma/client"; const prisma = new PrismaClient(); const user = await prisma.user.create({ data: { name: "Alex", email: "[email protected]" }, }); import { PrismaClient } from "@prisma/client"; const prisma = new PrismaClient(); const user = await prisma.user.create({ data: { name: "Alex", email: "[email protected]" }, }); import { PrismaClient } from "@prisma/client"; const prisma = new PrismaClient(); const user = await prisma.user.create({ data: { name: "Alex", email: "[email protected]" }, }); # Install CLI -weight: 500;">brew -weight: 500;">install neonctl # Create a branch from production neonctl branches create --name staging --project-id YOUR_PROJECT # Each branch gets its own connection string # Test migrations on staging without touching production # Merge when ready — like -weight: 500;">git for your database # Install CLI -weight: 500;">brew -weight: 500;">install neonctl # Create a branch from production neonctl branches create --name staging --project-id YOUR_PROJECT # Each branch gets its own connection string # Test migrations on staging without touching production # Merge when ready — like -weight: 500;">git for your database # Install CLI -weight: 500;">brew -weight: 500;">install neonctl # Create a branch from production neonctl branches create --name staging --project-id YOUR_PROJECT # Each branch gets its own connection string # Test migrations on staging without touching production # Merge when ready — like -weight: 500;">git for your database - 512 MB storage — enough for hundreds of thousands of rows - Serverless — scales to zero, no idle charges - Branching — -weight: 500;">git-like branches for your database - Connection pooling — built-in, no PgBouncer needed - Serverless driver — HTTP-based, works from edge functions - Point-in-time restore — 7-day history - Autoscaling — 0.25 to 2 CU on free tier - One project with 10 branches - 30+ Free APIs Every Developer Should Bookmark - Upstash Has a Free Redis - Resend Has a Free API - PlanetScale — Serverless MySQL - Algolia Has a Free Tier - MongoDB Atlas Has a Free Tier - Auth0 Has a Free Tier - Cloudinary Has a Free API - Firebase Has a Free Tier - Supabase Has a Free Tier - Stripe Has a Free API