# Neon MCP Server vs PlanetScale MCP Server

> Neon scores 72.5 (BB) to PlanetScale's 69.6 (B) for sql databases. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/neon-mcp-vs-planetscale-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/neon-mcp-vs-planetscale-mcp.md (~5,050 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Neon MCP Server scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against PlanetScale MCP Server's 69.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. PlanetScale MCP Server leads on reliability and security & auth. Both do sql databases.

- Neon MCP Server: grade BB, 72.5/100, rank #125 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/neon-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/neon-mcp.json
- PlanetScale MCP Server: grade B, 69.6/100, rank #234 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/planetscale-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/planetscale-mcp.json
- Best database, file and memory tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/data/index.md
- All 111 databases comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/data/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Neon MCP Server (BB)

Good for: Agents building on Neon Postgres in development, especially branch-per-change workflows. supabase-mcp and planetscale-mcp are the nearest listings; Neon itself advises against pointing it at production.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 82
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 74
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 15

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: 138 tools listed when no category or project is set

### PlanetScale MCP Server (B)

Good for: Agents that inspect and tune an existing PlanetScale database, using Insights, schema recommendations, error patterns and logs, with SQL when granted.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 78 against 72
- Security & auth, 77 against 69

Watch for: DELETE and DDL confirmation is a `confirm_destructive` flag the model sets, not a prompt the client shows the person


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: Neon MCP Server +25

- Neon MCP Server (40): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-unit prices are public, compute per CU-hour and storage per GB-month (20). Free plan with no card (20). A person signs up and authorises in a browser; the CLI can mint a key only after a login (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.
- PlanetScale MCP Server (15): No x402, MPP or L402 in the MCP docs, the pricing page or the source (0). Monthly prices for every cluster size are public without a login, as a Markdown page and as a read-only SQL catalogue, from $5 a month for a single-node Postgres PS-5. Storage, backup and egress rates were not on the page read, and there is no per-call price (15). No free tier or trial was found, and the billing docs say all plans need a valid payment method on file (0). A person signs up in a browser and authorises OAuth or creates a service token in organisation settings (0). Total 15.

### Schema & documentation: Neon MCP Server +8

- Neon MCP Server (90): Every tool has a JSON Schema, many generated from the Neon OpenAPI spec (25). neon.com serves llms.txt and Markdown pages (10). Descriptions say when and when not ("branch_id is a branch id, not a branch name. Call list_branches to resolve a name", "NEVER run autonomously") (18). Typed inputs with enums such as access read_only or read_write, and path arguments checked for . and .. since 2.0.0 (13). Examples in the README and docs, and API 4xx errors classified by kind (11). CHANGELOG with dated releases and a registry version (13). 25 + 10 + 18 + 13 + 11 + 13 = 90.
- PlanetScale MCP Server (82): The 14 tools in planetscale/mcp-server have typed zod input schemas, and the other 12 are generated from the public OpenAPI file at planetscale.com/docs/openapi.yaml, 304 operations (25). llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every docs page (10). The custom descriptions state purpose, limits and when to ask the person, for example the 50-second limit, row-level security on Postgres reads and the Checkout sequence for the payment tools. The generated tools are one-line summaries (17). Enums for log levels and summary fields, clamped limits and required fields. `organization`, `database` and `branch` are free strings and SQL is free text by nature (12). The docs give example prompts and a permissions table per tool. Tool errors are plain text beginning `Error:` with the API status code (10). The product changelog is dated and carries MCP entries, but the server has no version history of its own. The package is 0.0.0, the repository has no tags or changelog, and the registry entry has stayed at 1.0.0 since 15 April 2026 (8). Total 82. The tool definitions were read from the source and the docs, not from the live server, which answered 401 without a token on 9 October.

### Security & auth: PlanetScale MCP Server +8

- Neon MCP Server (69): OAuth 2.1 with read and write scopes, per-project and per-role fixed grants, Client ID Metadata Documents and RFC 9207 iss on redirects, or API keys (28). Read-only mode keeps SQL in READ ONLY transactions and withholds connection strings, roleName limits SQL to a role's grants, and destructive tools ask the model to confirm with the user; with an API key anyone who can edit the URL can widen the grant (17). The README warns to review every action and keep the server away from production, but we found no prompt-injection guidance for query results (5). Neon has project audit logs, but we didn't read whether MCP calls appear (5). SOC 2 Type II with a public SOC 3, ISO 27001 and 27701, HIPAA; no security.txt on neon.com (14). 28 + 17 + 5 + 5 + 14 = 69.
- PlanetScale MCP Server (77): OAuth with each client registered as an OAuth application, scopes that set no, read-only or full access per organisation or per database, a separate payment-method scope, and service tokens with per-permission grants for headless use. Each query runs on a database credential created for the call and deleted after it (30). Read queries use a reader password on Vitess and a `pg_read_all_data` role on Postgres that does not bypass row-level security. An insights-only endpoint has no SQL tools, and since 8 October 2026 administrators can cap members' grants at none, read-only or read and write. TRUNCATE and UPDATE or DELETE without WHERE are blocked. DELETE and DDL need `confirm_destructive`, which the model sets itself, and the check is a regular expression on the start of the statement. Write queries run as the `postgres` role or a Vitess admin password. Read and write is the default (16). Query results return database content to the model. The docs warn about write access to production, and no prompt-injection guidance or result wrapping was found (4). Organisation audit log and security log on all plans, service tokens showing the IP address they were last used from since 26 October, every MCP query tagged `source=planetscale-mcp` in Insights, and a list of installed OAuth apps with revoke (13). Vulnerability disclosure policy with security@planetscale.com, SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 with HIPAA, PCI DSS for PlanetScale Managed. security.txt returned 404 on 1 November and no bug bounty was found (14). Total 77.

### Reliability: PlanetScale MCP Server +6

- Neon MCP Server (72): Hosted reading. neonstatus.com on status.io with components per region, though no MCP component (20). The page shows only the last 30 days, three incidents, a partial disruption of monitoring data on 21 October (1 hour 22 minutes), slow compute starts in us-east-2 on 2 November (2 hours 14 minutes) and 26 minutes of console and API errors on 2 November; August and September weren't readable (15). The Neon API publishes 700 requests a minute with a 40-a-second burst per route (15). 429 with exponential backoff advice and 423 Locked for overlapping operations with retry guidance, but no idempotency keys (12). An uptime SLA on Scale only, with no percentage on the pricing page (5). The docs give the server no status label and the README says it isn't recommended for production (5). 20 + 15 + 15 + 12 + 5 + 5 = 72.
- PlanetScale MCP Server (78): Graded as a hosted service. Status page at planetscalestatus.com on incident.io with per-region components (20). Its incident feed, readable on 1 November, lists six incidents since 3 August, each partial. Postgres management pages and API endpoints returned 500 errors from 12:17 to 12:24 UTC on 2 September, Vitess databases in four GCP regions lost connectivity on 5 September, branch creation was delayed in GCP europe-west-1 on 28 September, AWS us-east-1 cross-zone networking failed on 9 October, us-east-1 dashboard metrics had a gap on 20 October, and on 26 October "certain branches" of Vitess lost connectivity and credential changes were delayed for about 1 hour 40 minutes, which touches the query tools' per-call credentials. Minor only (20). The API reference's rate-limit page gives 600 requests a minute for the PlanetScale API, "subject to change". The MCP docs don't say whether tool calls count against it. Twelve of the tools are generated from the API's own operations, and supabase-mcp, cloudflare-mcp, github-mcp-server and stripe-mcp take their vendor API's published limit for the server (15). The OpenAPI file and the rate-limit page list a 429 response with no Retry-After or backoff guidance, and no idempotency key for writes. The 50-second query limit is documented (3). The SLA commits to 99.99 per cent for single-region and 99.999 per cent for multi-region clusters with service credits, and excludes single-node clusters and beta functions (10). The docs give the MCP server no beta or preview label and the registry entry is 1.0.0 (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 3 + 10 + 10 = 78.

### Agent ergonomics: Neon MCP Server +5

- Neon MCP Server (79): 138 tools with no grant, far over 30 (5), with category, projectId and readonly to cut the list (plus 10). List tools take limits and cursors from the API, and describe_branch returns a tree (16). API errors return with their kind and status, path errors are tool errors, and unknown categories come back as a notice (16). readOnlyHint and destructiveHint on every definition, and the grant filter tells the model never to run destructive tools autonomously (18). Official TypeScript and Python SDKs for the Neon API; a no-auth tool preview endpoint (14). 15 + 16 + 16 + 18 + 14 = 79.
- PlanetScale MCP Server (74): 26 tools since `planetscale_get_branch_metrics` arrived on 9 October (15). The insights-only endpoint drops the two SQL tools, and OAuth scopes limit which tool groups a client is granted (5). Insights, error, tag and log tools take `limit` with documented maxima and report `truncated` or `has_next`, and the logs tool pages. `planetscale_execute_read_query` returns every row with no cap (15). Error texts say what to do next, for example the safe-migrations message with two ways forward, the `postgres_rls_active` warning on empty results and the full-access message on a payment 403 (15). The 14 source tools set `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint`, with a test that fails on a missing annotation. Annotations on the 12 generated tools were not read. No idempotency for writes was found, though the payment tool tells the model not to start a second setup while one is pending (15). Sensible defaults (replica routing, 24-hour windows, curated metrics), but three identifiers are required on nearly every call. Official SDKs do not apply to a hosted MCP server and none were checked (9). Total 74.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Neon MCP Server | PlanetScale MCP Server | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 72 | 78 | PlanetScale MCP Server +6 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 82 | Neon MCP Server +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 74 | Neon MCP Server +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 69 | 77 | PlanetScale MCP Server +8 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 15 | Neon MCP Server +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 80 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 75 | 72 | Neon MCP Server +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **72.5 · BB** | **69.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Neon MCP Server | PlanetScale MCP Server |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | MCP server |
| Vendor | Neon (Databricks) | PlanetScale |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.neon.tech/mcp` | `https://mcp.pscale.dev/mcp/planetscale` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary hosted service under PlanetScale's Terms of Service. The 13 tools in planetscale/mcp-server are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 138 | 26 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.neon/mcp` | `io.github.planetscale/mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-11-05 | 2026-10-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-14 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-01-09 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 663 stars | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (4) |

## How the scores have moved

### Neon MCP Server

No score change since it was listed.

### PlanetScale MCP Server

- +3.0 on 1 November 2026: new evidence
- +0.2 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**Neon MCP Server.** OAuth with read or write scopes, per-project and per-role grants, read-only SQL in READ ONLY transactions, and migrations tried on temporary branches. With no grant it lists 138 tools, the README advises against production use, and it sends account name and email to Segment with no opt-out for hosted users.

**PlanetScale MCP Server.** OAuth scopes set no, read-only or full database access per organisation or database, each query runs on a credential created and deleted for that call, and an insights-only endpoint drops both SQL tools. Destructive statements are gated by a flag the model sets itself, no limit is stated for the MCP server, and every plan needs a card.

## Before you call either

### Neon MCP Server

1. Connect with ?category=querying&category=schema&projectId=... or untick Allow writes at consent to cut 138 tools to a handful
2. Use prepare_database_migration and complete_database_migration for schema changes, and ask the user before completing
3. Pass branch IDs (br-...), not names; call list_branches to resolve a name
4. On 429 back off exponentially, and on 423 Locked wait for the running operation to finish

### PlanetScale MCP Server

1. Use `https://mcp.pscale.dev/mcp/planetscale-insights-only` when the task needs no SQL. It omits both query tools
2. Pass `organization`, `database` and `branch` on every query call. Record them in `AGENTS.md` to skip the listing calls
3. Show the person the exact DELETE or DDL statement and get approval before setting `confirm_destructive: true`
4. Keep queries under 50 seconds and add your own `LIMIT`. The query tools cancel at 50 seconds and return every row
5. For a service token send `Authorization: Bearer pscale_tkn_...` with the secret only. The `id:secret` form is rejected

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Neon MCP Server or PlanetScale MCP Server?

Neon MCP Server scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against PlanetScale MCP Server's 69.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. PlanetScale MCP Server leads on reliability and security & auth.

### Do Neon MCP Server and PlanetScale MCP Server need an API key?

Neon MCP Server uses an OAuth sign-in. PlanetScale MCP Server takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Neon MCP Server and PlanetScale MCP Server without installing anything?

Yes. Neon MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.neon.tech/mcp and PlanetScale MCP Server at https://mcp.pscale.dev/mcp/planetscale.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/neon-mcp-vs-planetscale-mcp.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/neon-mcp-vs-planetscale-mcp.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "neon-mcp", "b": "planetscale-mcp"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare neon-mcp planetscale-mcp`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/neon-mcp.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/planetscale-mcp.json

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- [PlanetScale MCP Server vs PostgreSQL (archived MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/planetscale-mcp-vs-postgres-reference-server-archived.md)
- [PlanetScale MCP Server vs Snowflake-managed MCP server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/planetscale-mcp-vs-snowflake-managed.md)
- [PlanetScale MCP Server vs Supabase API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/planetscale-mcp-vs-supabase-mcp.md)
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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp