Data
Neon Development
We use Neon where serverless PostgreSQL with branching fits: preview environments with their own data, and workloads that idle between bursts.
Usage
What we build with Neon
- Serverless application backends with connection pooling
- Preview environments with a database branch per pull request
- Reporting stores separated from the transactional database
- Low traffic services where scale to zero is the right economics
- Staging environments seeded from a branch rather than a restore
Rationale
Why we choose it
Branching changes how you test
A database branch per pull request means a reviewer sees the change against realistic data without sharing a staging database with everyone else.
Separated storage and compute
Compute scales with load and stops when idle, which suits workloads that are quiet for most of the day.
It is still PostgreSQL
Standard tooling, standard migrations, standard SQL. Nothing about the schema is specific to the platform.
Practice
Architecture patterns we use
Pooled connections from serverless functions
Serverless runtimes create connections faster than a database can accept them, so access goes through a pooler rather than directly.
Branch per preview deployment
The deployment pipeline creates a branch, runs migrations against it, points the preview at it, and deletes it on merge.
Cold start aware design
Request paths that can wake an idle compute are kept off the critical rendering path, so a first visitor does not wait for a database to start.
Related work
Case studies to explore
These projects share relevant engineering concerns. Each study identifies its documented technology choices.
Build with our Neon engineers
Tell us what you are building and what it has to connect to. We will come back with an approach, a scope and what it would take.
- A mutual NDA is signed before project details are shared.
- Scope is fixed in writing before any build starts.
- You own the source code, the IP and the documentation at delivery.
- Support plans are available and tailored on a discovery or technical call.