Head to head
DigitalOcean Managed Databases vs PlanetScale
Both platforms are scored with the same methodology and the same category rubric. Nothing on this page is influenced by advertising.
56/100Higher score | 56/100 | |
|---|---|---|
| Category rank | #1 | #2 |
| Confidence | High confidence | High confidence |
| External Reputation | 88 | 69 |
| AI Authority | 32 | 52 |
| Web Authority | 31 | 25 |
| Expert Assessment | 64 | 75 |
| TOP10 User Score | — | — |
| Pricing | $15.15/month (PostgreSQL/MySQL Basic, 1 GiB / 1 vCPU); Valkey from $15.00/month; MongoDB from $15.23/month · free tier: None | $5/month (Postgres PS-5 single node, EBS, us-east-1); $15/month for a 3-AZ HA PS-5 cluster · free tier: None — the vendor confirms the former Developer/Hobby free plan no longer exists and all databases require a paid subscription; there is no free evaluation path |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Subscription (per-cluster SKU) plus metered storage, egress and backups |
| Best for | Startups, freelancers, agencies and small product teams running PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB or a Valkey cache who want a fixed, forecastable monthly line item and a console they can operate without a DBA — especially teams already on DigitalOcean Droplets or Kubernetes. | Engineering teams that want branching-based schema workflows with predictable per-cluster pricing, MySQL shops needing Vitess horizontal sharding without operating it, IOPS-bound workloads suited to Metal NVMe, and enterprises needing the database inside their own AWS/GCP account with PCI via Managed. |
| Avoid if | You need PostgreSQL superuser access or unsupported extensions, backup retention beyond seven days, wide global region coverage and deep customisation, contractual refundability, or very high connection counts on small plans; HIPAA buyers must also budget for mandatory paid support. | You need a free tier or a zero-cost evaluation path, run many production environments (each is a full-price cluster), need Postgres horizontal sharding or read-only regions today, require PCI on a single-tenant deployment, or your procurement process demands a large verifiable review corpus. |
| Markets | SMB, Startups, Freelancers, Agencies | SMB, Startups, Enterprise, Engineering teams |
| Founded | — | — |
| Headquarters | — | — |
A higher TOP SCORE means more of the evidence favours that platform on this methodology — it is not a recommendation, and it does not account for your specific requirements. Advertisers are never declared the winner of a comparison.