Neon is a serverless Postgres platform, recently acquired by Databricks, known for instant database branching and scale-to-zero compute. The core storage engine is open source, but the hosted service — branching UI, autoscaling, and billing — runs on Neon's managed cloud.
Supabase is the alternative to reach for if you want a fully self-hostable Postgres platform, bundled with auth, storage, and real-time APIs, rather than relying on Neon's managed cloud service.
FAQ
Is there a free, open-source alternative to Neon?
Supabase is Apache-2.0 licensed and fully self-hostable, including the platform layer around Postgres, not just the database engine.
What's the best open-source alternative to Neon?
Supabase is the strongest pick if you want a self-hosted Postgres backend with auth and storage included; it doesn't replicate Neon's instant branching and scale-to-zero compute model specifically.
What are the top open-source alternatives to Neon?
Browse all open-source alternatives to Neon above, or explore the full Developer Tools category for more options.