Neon for SaaS apps

Build SaaS apps faster on Neon with autoscaling, database branching, and the serverless operating model

Teams are accelerating development workflows and reducing operational overhead with Neon’s database branching, autoscaling, and serverless operating model. Learn how you can do the same.

Summary

There are three key features that are helping teams develop SaaS applications faster and more efficiently with Postgres on Neon:

✓Database Branching: Create isolated environments with production-like copies of your data and schema for testing, development, and CI/CD workflows.
✓Autoscaling: CPU, memory, and storage automatically scale up or down to match your workload. Avoid paying for unused resources.
✓Neon's Serverless Operating Model: Skip managing pg_hba.conf files or SSH access. Neon simplifies operational tasks with an intuitive UI and API.

Key features

Database branching

Database Branching

A branch in Neon is a copy-on-write clone of your database, including both schema and data. Branches function like Git branches, enabling development, testing, and preview environments.

Instant branch creation: Independent of database size, with no duplicated storage.
Cost-efficient branches: One customer with a team of five developers handles all dev, test, and preview work through branches, spending ~$150/month.
Idle branch computes scale to zero: Further reducing costs.

How branches boost development velocity:

✓Onboard faster and keep in sync: You can give each developer their own branch for local development. Developers can use branch reset to instantly restore and sync with the latest changes.
✓Accelerate feature development and code reviews: Automate branch creation for each Git branch or pull request. Use tools like GitHub Actions or Neon's integrations:; - Neon GitHub Integration: Easily create a branch for every PR.; - Neon Vercel Integration: Create and integrate a branch into every Vercel preview deployment.
✓Enhance testing and CI/CD: Run test suites on exact copies of your production database using branches. Save time with instant branch creation, shaving minutes off every test run.

Autoscaling

Neon Autoscaling

Neon's autoscaling dynamically adjusts compute resources based on current load, removing the need for manual intervention.

For teams building SaaS on Neon, autoscaling offers several benefits:

✓Performance and cost-efficiency: Get performance without over-provisioning. On average, 60% of database costs come from unused resources.
✓No manual resizing: Unlike other platforms that limit resizing, require downtime, or only allow scaling up, Neon automates scaling both up and down instantly.
✓Minimized outage risk: Setting a high autoscaling limit helps prevent database downtime during unexpected traffic surges.

Serverless operating model

Neon abstracts away the concept of servers so that customers can focus on building their SaaS application, not managing their database:

No server management: You don’t need to provision, maintain, administer servers.
Managed infrastructure: Neon handles all underlying infrastructure, including security patches, load balancing, and capacity planning.
Built-in availability and fault tolerance: Neon is designed to minimize customer-facing impact in event of hardware failure.
Focus on business logic: You can concentrate on writing code for your application's core functionality rather than dealing with infrastructure concerns.

Database-per-user architectures

If your SaaS project could benefit from multitenancy, Neon makes it simple to create a dedicated database for each user:

No pre-provisioning: In Neon, there’s no need to provision infrastructure in advance. You can scale your architecture progressively, from a few tenants to thousands, without breaking the bank.
Cost efficiency: You only pay for the Neon instances that are actively running. Thanks to scale-to-zero, creating instances doesn’t incur compute costs unless they’re actually in use.
Instant deployment: Neon databases are created in milliseconds via APIs. An API call can spin up a new project whenever your end-user needs a database, without slowing things down.

More info on Database per Tenant

Table stakes

Differentiated features are great, but what about the basics... Does Neon meet the requirements for your use case?

Compatibility

✓It's Just Postgres: Deploy Postgres 14, 15, 16, and 17 on Neon. There is no lock-in, no proprietary syntax to learn.
✓Integrates with any language/framework: Anything that has a Postgres driver or integration works with Neon.
✓70+ Postgres extensions: pgvector, postGIS, timescaledb and many other popular Postgres extensions are supported on Neon
✓Logical Replication: Inbound (Neon as subscriber) and outbound (Neon as publisher) logical replication are supported.
✓Serverless (HTTP) Driver: Unlock access from serverless environments like AWS Lambda and Cloudflare Workers with the Neon serverless driver. It uses an HTTP API to query from edge/serverless with lower latency.

Performance and scale

Similar Latency Characteristics to RDS Postgres

Prisma recently published performance benchmarks showing similar latency between AWS RDS and Neon.
Self-Serve Autoscaling from zero to 16 CU

Configure Neon to autoscale up to 16 CPU, 64 GB RAM. Contact our team to unlock larger computes.
Storage up to 2TB

Storage scales seamlessly based on usage. Contact our team for custom rates on 2tb+ storage.
Instant Read Replicas Read replicas on Neon are faster to create, and only add compute (not storage) making them a cost efficient means of separating workloads.

Security and compliance

—IP Allow List: Scale and Business Plan accounts can lock down database access to specific IP addresses or ranges.
—SOC 2 Type 2 Compliant: Neon has been SOC 2 Type 2 Compliant since Dec 2, 2023. View full compliance details in the Trust Center.
—HIPAA compliance in-progress: Neon is actively pursuing attaining HIPAA compliance. Contact our team to get notified of updates.

Cost

✓Usage-Based Billing: Paid plans start at $19 for an allotment of Compute and Storage resources, and scale up predictably as your workload grows.
✓Pay via AWS Marketplace: If your business is already active on AWS, you may be able to save hassle and budgets by paying for Neon via AWS Marketplace.
✓Pay via Azure Marketplace: If your business runs on Azure, Neon is available as a native Azure integration, with billing through Azure.

Have any questions or need more information?

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