# Stolon and Neon

> Stolon and Neon side by side, based on Neon's own pages, as of 26 September 2026: branching, merging, restore and prices.

Source: https://stolondb.com/compare/neon/ · Page title: Stolon vs Neon: branching, merging and pricing compared

Both give a Postgres client an instant branch. A Neon branch gets its own compute; a Stolon branch merges back.

*As of 26 September 2026.*

|   | Neon | Stolon |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What it is | open-source serverless Postgres; storage separated from compute (Apache-2.0) | a Postgres-compatible database; closed source |
| A branch | a copy-on-write clone of the parent's data; each branch has dedicated compute | `CREATE DATABASE b`: instant at any size; the database name selects it |
| Merging a branch back | Neon's branching overview describes reset-from-parent and restore; it does not describe merging a branch's data into its parent | `MERGE DATABASE b INTO main`, with conflicts named `table[pk].column` and a `DRY RUN` preview |
| Going back in time | instant restore within the history window: 6 hours on Free (1 GB limit), up to 7 days on Launch, up to 30 on Scale | `FOR SYSTEM_TIME AS OF` on any table and branch, and restore a branch to a moment |
| Branch price | 10 branches per project included on Free and Launch, 25 on Scale; then $1.50 per branch-month, prorated hourly | no per-branch fee on paid plans |
| Compute | $0.106 per CU-hour on Launch, $0.222 on Scale; Free includes 100 CU-hours per project; scales to zero after 5 minutes idle on Free and Launch | no per-branch compute |
| Storage | $0.35 per GB-month on Launch and Scale; 0.5 GB per project on Free; instant-restore history $0.20 per GB-month | free in preview; prices published at launch |
| Postgres surface | PostgreSQL itself, including extensions | Postgres-compatible, with pgvector and the common extensions ([check your queries](https://stolondb.com/compatibility/)) |

## When each fits

- **Neon** if you want each branch to be a Postgres instance with its own compute.
- **Stolon** if you want a branch per agent, test or pull request, with changes coming back to `main` as a reviewed merge.

## Sources

- [neon.com/pricing](https://neon.com/pricing): plans, branch, compute, storage and restore prices
- [neon.com/docs/introduction/branching](https://neon.com/docs/introduction/branching): what a branch is, reset from parent, instant restore
- [github.com/neondatabase/neon](https://github.com/neondatabase/neon): description and license
- Stolon: [docs](https://stolondb.com/docs/)