Neon vs Retool
Neon and Retool are both developer tools tools. Neon is aimed at developers, while Retool is aimed at developers and enterprise. Both have a free plan.
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium · $12 |
| Starting price | Not published | $12/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers | Developers, Enterprise |
| Platforms | web | web |
| Country | US · 2021 | US · 2017 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Neon if
Developers who want elastic Postgres with branching and are comfortable assembling the rest of the stack.
- Branching changes development workflows
- Pay only for compute you use
- Fast provisioning, great for AI agents and previews
Look elsewhere if: Teams wanting an all-in-one backend (Supabase) or steady high-throughput workloads where reserved instances are cheaper.
Choose Retool if
Engineering and operations teams at startups and enterprises who need internal tools fast.
- Fastest way to build internal tools
- Rich component library and connectors
- Free for 5 users
Look elsewhere if: Customer-facing apps or non-technical builders without SQL/JS basics.
Neon vs Retool pricing
Neon
- Free$0100 CU-hours and 1 GB storage per project, 100 projects
- Launch$0.106/CU-hourUsage-based, no minimum; storage $0.35/GB-month; 7-day restore
- Scale$0.222/CU-hourUsage-based; 30-day restore; SOC 2, HIPAA, SLA
Retool
- Free$0Up to 5 users, 500 workflow runs/mo
- Team$12/builder/mo$10 billed annually; internal users $7 ($5); 5,000 runs/mo
- Business$65/builder/mo$50 billed annually; internal users $18 ($15); audit logs
- EnterpriseCustomSSO, SCIM, Git, up to 6 instances
Neon · Key features
- Serverless Postgres with scale-to-zero and autoscaling
- Instant database branching for previews and testing
- Point-in-time restore and time travel queries
- Postgres extensions including pgvector
- Connection pooling and HTTP driver for edge runtimes
- API for programmatic project and branch creation
Cons
- Cold starts after autosuspend
- Costs can surprise at sustained high compute
- Database only; bring your own auth and storage
Retool · Key features
- 100+ components with drag-and-drop layout
- Native connectors to databases and APIs; SQL and JS everywhere
- Retool Workflows for automation and cron
- Retool Mobile for native internal apps
- AI components and Retool Agents
- Permissions, audit logs, source control and self-hosting (Enterprise)
Cons
- Per-user pricing adds up for large orgs
- Complex apps hit the limits of the model
- JavaScript knowledge needed for real logic
Neon vs Retool: FAQ
Do Neon and Retool have a free plan?
Yes, both Neon and Retool have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.