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Free Postgres and Database Hosting in 2026: 8 Free Tiers Compared
Free Postgres hosting compared: Neon, Supabase, Prisma Postgres, Nile, Turso, Aiven, Render and CockroachDB. Storage, pausing rules, project limits, card rules.
For a side project, Neon's free plan is the best general-purpose Postgres: 100 projects, 1 GB of storage each and 10 branches per project, with no card. If the database must never sleep, Nile's free plan says it never pauses, and Prisma Postgres gives 50 databases and 2 GB with no card. Supabase is the pick when you also want auth and file storage, but its free projects can be paused after 7 days of low activity.
Eight free tiers are below. Every number was checked against each provider's own pricing or docs page on 13 November 2026. Where a page does not state a figure, the entry says so instead of guessing.
What to compare
- Storage. Free plans range from 500 MB to 5 GB. Check whether the cap is per project or per account.
- Compute and sleep. Some tiers suspend compute when idle and wake on the next query; some pause the whole project; some expire. This decides whether your first request is slow or your app is gone.
- Project and branch limits. Branches matter if you want a preview database per pull request.
- Card required. Mostly no, but several pages do not say.
Side by side
| Provider | Free storage | Free compute | Projects / DBs | Idle behaviour | Card |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neon | 1 GB per project, 20 GB total | 100 CU-hours per project per month | 100 projects, 10 branches each | Suspends after 5 min, restarts in a few hundred ms | Not required |
| Supabase | 500 MB database | Shared CPU, 500 MB RAM | 2 active projects | May pause after 7 days of low activity | Not stated |
| Prisma Postgres | 2 GB | 200k operations a month | 50 databases | Cold start not described | Not required |
| Nile | 1 GB | 50 million query tokens | Unlimited databases | "Never pauses", no cold start | Not stated |
| Turso (libSQL) | 5 GB | 500M rows read, 10M written a month | 100 databases | Not stated | Not required |
| Aiven | 1 GB | 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM | 1 VM | Powers off after inactivity (length not stated) | Not required |
| Render | 1 GB | Not stated | 1 active per workspace | Expires 30 days after creation | Not stated |
| CockroachDB | 10 GiB (credit) | 50M Request Units (credit) | Basic clusters | Billed on provisioned storage | Required |
Provider by provider
Neon
Neon's free plan gives 100 projects, 1 GB of Postgres storage per project (20 GB across projects), 100 CU-hours per project per month with autoscaling to 2 CU (8 GB RAM), and 10 branches per project. Its plans docs add 6 hours of instant restore. No card is needed.
Good for: side projects that want a real Postgres and a branch per pull request. Not for: apps that cannot tolerate a wake-up. Compute suspends after 5 minutes of inactivity and this cannot be turned off on Free; Neon says it restarts on the next query, typically within a few hundred milliseconds. Exhaust the CU-hours or the 5 GB monthly transfer and compute stays suspended until the next billing period; Neon says no data is deleted.
Supabase
Supabase's free plan is a 500 MB database on shared CPU with 500 MB RAM, 1 GB of file storage, 5 GB of egress and 50,000 monthly active users, limited to 2 active projects. The going-into-prod docs say Free projects with low activity over 7 days may be paused, and can be restored from the dashboard. Paused projects do not count toward the two-project limit. Automatic backups are not included.
Good for: a full backend (Postgres, auth, storage) for a prototype; see the PocketBase alternatives comparison. Not for: a quiet app that must stay up unattended. Whether a card is needed is not stated on the pages we read.
Prisma Postgres
Prisma's free plan lists 200k operations a month, 2 GB of storage and 50 databases, with "No credit card required." The page does not say what happens when you pass 200k operations, and it does not describe database cold starts; the only timing it gives is a 60-minute connection idle timeout.
Good for: many small databases and TypeScript projects already on Prisma. Not for: anyone who needs to know the over-limit behaviour in advance: ask before relying on it.
Nile
Nile's free plan is described as "No pauses, always available": unlimited databases, 1 GB of storage and 50 million query tokens, with no cold start. Extra storage is $1.50 per GB and extra tokens $0.06 per million. The page does not say whether a card is required.
Good for: multi-tenant apps and anything that cannot afford a sleeping database. Not for: projects that need a large free storage allowance.
Turso (libSQL)
Turso is SQLite-compatible (libSQL), not Postgres. Its free plan: 100 databases, 5 GB of storage, 500 million rows read and 10 million rows written a month, 1 day of point-in-time restore, and "no credit card required." The page states no sleep or pause rule and no branch limit.
Good for: edge or per-user databases and read-heavy apps. Not for: code that needs Postgres features or an ORM set up for Postgres. Drizzle ORM can target either.
Aiven
Aiven's free PostgreSQL is 1 CPU, 1 GB RAM and 1 GB of storage on a dedicated VM, with no card. It powers off after a period of inactivity, with an email and in-platform warning first; the page does not give the period.
Good for: a learning database on an ordinary Postgres host. Not for: anything left unattended.
Render
Render's free Postgres is 1 GB, one active database per workspace, with no backups. It expires 30 days after creation, followed by a 14-day grace period before Render deletes the database. Free web services spin down after 15 minutes without traffic and take about a minute to start.
Good for: a short demo next to a Render web service. Not for: anything that has to last past a month.
CockroachDB
CockroachDB has no free tier. Its pricing page offers a 30-day trial with $400 in credit. Its docs add a recurring $15 credit on Basic clusters (50 million Request Units and 10 GiB of storage), for which a payment method is required.
Good for: testing distributed SQL. Not for: a free side-project database.
Left out
Xata: its pricing page lists the open-source edition as free to self-host and states no hosted free allowance. Railway: a one-time $5 trial credit for 30 days, then $1 of free credit a month, not a free database tier.
How to choose
- Postgres with branches: Neon.
- Database, auth and storage in one: Supabase.
- Must never sleep: Nile.
- Most free storage: Turso (5 GB), if SQLite fits.
- Self-host instead: PocketBase on a Coolify server; see the Coolify alternatives.
More offers are in the free tiers hub, including the Neon Startup Program. Browse the Repos directory for databases and ORMs.
FAQ
What is the best free Postgres for a side project?
Neon: 1 GB per project, 100 projects, 10 branches, no card, as of 13 November 2026.
Does Supabase pause free projects?
Supabase's docs say free projects with low activity over 7 days may be paused; you restore them from the dashboard.
Which free database never sleeps?
Nile says its free database never pauses. Neon suspends compute after 5 minutes but wakes on the next query.
Sources
- Neon: pricing, plans
- Supabase: pricing, going into production
- Prisma: pricing
- Nile: pricing
- Turso: pricing
- Aiven: free PostgreSQL
- Render: free docs
- CockroachDB: pricing, free trial docs
- Xata: pricing; Railway: free trial docs
All figures checked 13 November 2026. Free tiers change; confirm on the pricing page before relying on one.