A Neon alternative with always-on Postgres, run from Germany
Neon made serverless Postgres and instant branching popular, and has been part of Databricks since 2025. Zektor runs each database as an always-on instance on dedicated EU servers, with branching built on its backups.
Side by side
| Neon | Zektor | |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Part of Databricks, Inc. (USA) since 2025 | Akcan-IT, a German company |
| Infrastructure | AWS and Azure | Hetzner (a German provider), servers in Nuremberg, Falkenstein and Helsinki |
| Compute | Serverless, scales to zero | Always-on instance with fixed CPU and RAM, no cold starts |
| Branching | Copy-on-write branches | Branches from any backup or point in time, each with its own credentials and compute |
| Pricing | Usage-based compute and storage | A plan per database from €5/month, storage €0.15/GB above the plan |
Based on Neon's public information, checked October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.
Where Neon is the better fit
- Serverless: compute scales to zero when idle, so quiet projects cost very little
- Instant copy-on-write branches, well suited to preview environments
- A free tier and integrations with Vercel and other platforms
Choose Neon if: Your databases are idle most of the time and scale-to-zero matters more than where the provider is based.
What Zektor gives you
- Managed PostgreSQL on Hetzner servers in Germany and Finland
- A German company as your provider; a DPA is available on request
- Daily backups and point-in-time recovery to any second
- Database branches from any backup, each with its own credentials
- Storage that grows separately from CPU and RAM
- Plans from €5/month; you can try a database without signing up
Choose Zektor if: You want steady performance without cold starts, a predictable monthly price, and an EU company and EU servers.
Moving from Neon
It is standard PostgreSQL on both sides: dump your database with pg_dump, create a database on Zektor and restore it with pg_restore. Then point your app at the new connection string. The migration guide walks through it step by step.
Other comparisons: Zektor vs Supabase · Zektor vs Heroku Postgres