Reflecting on Neon's debut blog post, "SELECT 'Hello, World'," the fundamental reasons for choosing Neon remain unchanged:
To build the best Postgres experience in the cloud.
This continues to be our core mission today. It was evident then, as it is now, that database workloads are shifting to the cloud — and no one wants to manage a database themselves.
In an ever-evolving technology landscape, we believe Postgres is here to stay.
Just like the Linux operating system or Git version control, we consider Postgres the default choice for a relational database system. That’s why all major platforms, including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Digital Ocean, and many newcomers, offer Postgres as a service.
A modern Postgres cloud service can be designed differently.
We refer to this approach as the separation of storage and compute, which allows us to architect the service around performance, reliability, manageability, and cost-efficiency.
We believe our architecture can provide a superior Developer Experience (DevX).
Features such as autoscaling, branching, time travel, and instant databases, along with backups and restores, enhance the developer experience by enabling quick environment setup, efficient workflows, and immediate database availability.
These are Neon's reasons, but given the multitude of database-as-a-service options available today, let's explore why you should choose Neon:
Neon is Postgres.
Postgres is the world's most popular open-source database.
From its inception as a DARPA-sponsored project at Berkeley, Postgres has cultivated a growing community and is favored by developers for its performance, reliability, extensibility, and support for features like ACID transactions, advanced SQL, and NoSQL/JSON. Neon supports all the latest Postgres versions and numerous extensions.
If your application runs on Postgres, it runs on Neon. If it doesn't, sign up for a Free Plan account, join our Discord server, and start your journey with us.
Neon is serverless.
A serverless architecture designed for performance, reliability, manageability, and cost efficiency.
Neon's architecture separates compute from storage, enabling serverless features like instant provisioning, autoscaling, autosuspend, and more.
Separating compute from storage means that database computation processes (queries, transactions, etc.) are handled by one set of resources (compute), while the data itself is stored on a separate set of resources (storage). This design contrasts with traditional architectures where compute and storage are tightly coupled on the same server. In Neon, Postgres runs on compute, while data (except for what's cached in memory) resides on Neon's storage layer.
This separation allows for scalability, as these resources can be scaled independently. You can adjust processing power or storage capacity as needed without affecting the other. This approach is also cost-efficient. The ability to scale resources independently means you can benefit from the lower cost of storage compared to compute or avoid paying for additional storage when you only need extra processing power. Decoupling compute and storage also enhances availability and durability, as data remains accessible and safe even if a compute resource fails.
Read more about the benefits of Neon's serverless architecture and how it supports database-per-user architectures, variable workloads, and database branching workflows.
Did you know?
Neon's autoscaling feature instantly adjusts your compute and memory resources without requiring manual intervention or restarts.
Neon is fully managed.
Leave the database administrative, maintenance, and scaling burdens to us.
Being a fully managed service means that Neon provides high availability without requiring users to handle the administrative, maintenance, or scaling challenges associated with managing a database system. This approach allows developers to focus more on building applications and less on the operational aspects of database management. Neon takes care of the complexities of scaling, backups, maintenance, and ensuring availability, enabling developers to manage their data without worrying about the underlying infrastructure.
Neon is open source.
Neon is developed under an Apache 2.0 license.
Neon is not the first to offer separation of storage and compute for Postgres. AWS Aurora is probably the most well-known example; however, it is proprietary and tied to AWS’s internal infrastructure.
We believe we have an opportunity to define the standard for cloud Postgres. We have carefully designed our storage with a focus on cloud independence, performance, manageability, DevX, and cost. We chose the most permissive open-source license, Apache 2.0, and invited the world to participate. You can already build and run your own self-hosted instance of Neon. Check out our Neon GitHub repository and the #self-hosted channel on our Discord server.
Neon doesn't lock you in.
As a true Postgres platform, there's no lock-in with Neon.
Building on Neon means building on Postgres. If you are already using Postgres, getting started is easy. Import your data and connect. Migrating from other databases like MySQL or MongoDB is just as straightforward.
If you need to move data, you won't have to dismantle your application to remove proprietary application layers. Neon is pro-ecosystem and pro-integration. We encourage you to build with the frameworks, platforms, and services that best fit your requirements. Neon works to enable that. Check out our ever-expanding collection of framework, language, and integration guides.