Polyglot engines on one plane
SQL, KV/cache, vector, object/S3, time-series and HTAP are all claims on one control plane with one lifecycle. Neon and PlanetScale are Postgres/MySQL-only; Aiven is many engines but many consoles, not one claim model.
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The serverless-data category is real and these are strong products. Below is an honest, capability-by-capability read: where DBaaS wins (polyglot breadth on one plane, sovereign S3/R2 with zero-egress, the only-data-plane guarantee, database-enforced tenant isolation) and where we openly trail.
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Neon and PlanetScale set the bar on serverless Postgres and instant branching UX — we don't claim to match that today, and we say so in the table. Where DBaaS wins is multi-engine breadth on one claim plane, dynamic-credential security with no static passwords, per-tenant encryption keys, and sovereignty / self-host. Competitor capabilities are summarised in good faith.
| Capability | DBaaS (SS-02) | Neon | PlanetScale | Aiven | Supabase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engine breadth | SQL, KV/cache, vector, object/S3, time-series, HTAP — one claim plane | Serverless Postgres | MySQL + Postgres (Vitess) | Many managed engines (Postgres, Kafka, Redis-compatible, OpenSearch…) | Postgres + auth/storage/edge add-ons |
| Serverless / branching UX | Claims + rotation today; serverless autoscale & instant branching are our stated direction, not yet Neon-class | Category leader — instant branches, scale-to-zero | Strong — schema branching + deploy requests | Managed, not scale-to-zero / branch-first | Branching (via Neon-style previews), improving |
| Dynamic-credential security | Vault dynamic leases ≤1h TTL; no static passwords (Kyverno-enforced); binding returns a secret_ref | Connection strings / roles | Connection strings / passwords | Managed credentials (mostly static) | Connection strings + JWT roles |
| Vector engine included | Yes — typed Qdrant vector claims | pgvector on Postgres | No first-class vector engine | Via OpenSearch / add-ons | pgvector on Postgres |
| Object storage / S3-R2 included | Yes — RustFS buckets + SigV4 S3 wire gateway (aws-cli/boto3) | No object storage | No object storage | No S3-style object storage | Yes — Supabase Storage (S3-compatible) |
| Per-tenant encryption keys | Per-tenant KEKs in Vault Transit; no cloud KMS (sovereignty invariant) | Platform-managed encryption | Platform-managed encryption | Platform-managed (BYOK on some plans) | Platform-managed encryption |
| CDC + point-in-time restore | CDC stream + PITR to a new claim, on every engine | PITR (branch/restore); logical replication | PITR; no built-in CDC product | PITR + connectors on some engines | PITR on paid; logical replication |
| Sovereignty / self-host | Sovereign by construction — mesh, tenancy, Vault keys, dedicated / self-host regions | Managed cloud (US/EU regions) | Managed cloud | Managed multi-cloud; BYOC on higher tiers | Managed cloud + open-source self-host |
Neon, PlanetScale, Aiven and Supabase capabilities are summarised in good faith and change often — check each vendor for current details. We are deliberately honest that Neon and PlanetScale lead on serverless scale-to-zero and branching UX; DBaaS's differentiator is multi-engine breadth on one claim plane, dynamic-credential security and sovereignty — with serverless autoscale and instant branching stated as our direction, not a shipped feature.
Where DBaaS wins
SQL, KV/cache, vector, object/S3, time-series and HTAP are all claims on one control plane with one lifecycle. Neon and PlanetScale are Postgres/MySQL-only; Aiven is many engines but many consoles, not one claim model.
A real SigV4 object gateway (aws-cli/boto3) is built in, with intra-edge egress zero-rated. None of Neon, PlanetScale or Aiven ship S3-style object storage as part of the database product.
One door for all state (ADR-0056) means tenancy, audit, per-tenant KEKs and metering are solved once. The competitors are single-engine managed databases, not a whole-platform data plane.
Postgres tenants get FORCE ROW LEVEL SECURITY served as DDL; the isolation asymmetry for MySQL is stated honestly with a mechanical guard. Multi-tenant isolation is a recorded policy, not a per-app afterthought.
Honest gaps
Neon and PlanetScale set the bar on serverless and branching UX. We don't claim to match them today; here is exactly where the gap is and what it means for you.
Neon's scale-to-zero and instant copy-on-write branches are the category benchmark. Our branching is a real point-in-time restore to a new claim — honest, credentialed, safe — but not yet instant or copy-on-write. Stated direction, not a shipped claim.
We provision instantly, but compute does not yet scale to zero between requests the way Neon does. Usage-based pricing softens it; the autoscale story is on the roadmap.
PlanetScale's schema branching + deploy requests are a polished workflow we don't match yet. Our restore-to-new-claim gives you a safe fork, but not the guided online-schema-change flow.
Aiven's long tail of managed engines and connectors (Kafka, OpenSearch, Flink…) is wider than our sanctioned menu. We are deliberately narrow — permissive licenses, one plane — and route analytics through Prism instead.
Read the branching story in full. Our point-in-time restore-to-new-claim is a real, credentialed fork — see exactly how it works on the serverless & branching deep-dive.
Serverless & branching →