Canner vs. Neon
Neon is a serverless Postgres with no Canadian region. Canner runs Postgres and your app in Montreal.
Neon is database-first and built around usage-based compute that scales to zero. Canner is a platform: managed Postgres on every plan, next to the app that uses it, hosted only in Montreal by a Canadian-owned company.
- Neon’s regions are three in the US, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Sydney and São Paulo. There is no Canadian region. Canner is hosted only in Montreal.
- Neon bills compute by the CU-hour and storage by the GB-month, with no monthly minimum. Canner uses flat CAD plans with one pooled storage limit, so a bill is easier to predict.
- Neon scales to zero on its free plan, which Canner does not do. Canner has no autoscaling to zero, no branching, no high availability and one region.
| Feature | Canner | Neon |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price and free tier | Starter is CA$0 with managed Postgres and 5 GB of pooled storage. Live is CA$9/mo. | Free at $0 (0.5 GB per project, 100 CU-hours, scales to zero after 5 minutes). Launch is usage-based with no monthly minimum. † |
| Pricing model | Flat CAD plans plus add-ons. Storage is one pooled limit; +50 GB blocks are CA$5/mo. | Launch listed at $0.106 per CU-hour and $0.35 per GB-month of storage. Neon’s own example workload comes to about $23.47/month. † |
| Backups and restore window | Scheduled backups on every plan with retention you set, encrypted, verified, with off-site copies to up to 5 of your own S3-compatible buckets. | Restore history of 6 hours on Free, up to 7 days on Launch, up to 30 days on Scale. History is billed at $0.20/GB-month. † |
| Point-in-time recovery | Dedicated instance add-on (CA$9/mo per project): 1 to 35 day window, restores any moment into a new database. | Neon documents restore within its history window (see the row above). † |
| Extensions | With the Dedicated instance: pgvector, PostGIS, pg_trgm, pg_cron, hstore and others (14 in the catalog). | pgvector and PostGIS supported. pg_cron is supported but runs only while compute is active. † |
| Logical replication | With the Dedicated instance: replication out to your own subscribers, and following an external Postgres server live for a no-downtime migration. | Publisher or subscriber. Live migration into Neon is documented. Enabling it cannot be reverted. † |
| Canadian region | Montreal, Quebec, the only region. | None. Regions: 3 in the US, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Sydney, São Paulo. † |
| Ownership | Canadian-owned, no US affiliate, not subject to the US CLOUD Act. | Databricks announced in May 2025 that it agreed to acquire Neon. We do not state whether the deal has closed. † |
| Data transfer | Storage is the pooled limit that counts. See the pricing page for every line item. | Launch includes 500 GB per project, then $0.10/GB. † |
| What else is bundled | App hosting, cron, S3-style object storage, Data Workshop (SQL over your files), CLI and MCP server, all on the same plan. | Database-first. We compare only the Postgres side here. |
| Currency | CAD. | Prices shown as $ on the pricing page. Confirm the billing currency at checkout. † |
† Competitor details come from each vendor's own published pages on the dates shown; prices and plans change, so check the vendor before you decide. Entry price and free tier (2026-09-26) · Pricing model (2026-09-26) · Backups and restore window (2026-09-26) · Point-in-time recovery (2026-09-26) · Extensions (2026-09-26) · Logical replication (2026-09-26) · Canadian region (2026-09-26) · Ownership (2026-09-26) · Data transfer (2026-09-26) · Currency (2026-09-26)
When Canner is the right call
If data has to stay in Canada, Neon’s region list rules it out today, and Canner keeps it in Montreal under a Canadian owner. If you would rather pay a flat CAD price than track CU-hours, and you want the app, cron and storage beside the database, Canner is simpler. Be aware of what you give up: no scale-to-zero, no branching, no high availability or failover, one region, and point-in-time recovery restores into a new database.
When Neon still makes sense
Neon’s compute scales to zero and is billed only for what runs, which suits spiky, small or intermittent workloads and free-tier prototypes. Its restore history goes up to 30 days on the Scale plan, and it has regions on several continents. If you have no Canadian residency requirement and want usage-based Postgres that costs almost nothing when idle, Neon is a good fit.
Ready to give it a try?
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