Replace / PlanetScale
Best free PlanetScale alternatives (open source, self-hosted) 2026
The best open-source alternative to PlanetScale is Vitess or TiDB, self-hosted on Railway. MySQL you scale yourself. Vitess is Apache-2.0 sharding; TiDB is Apache-2.0 distributed SQL — PlanetScale without the serverless seat.
Estimated save $1,200 a year.
Open the stackStart on Railway
How PlanetScale compares
| PlanetScale | Vitess / TiDB | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Hosted subscription | Open-source or fair-code license; you pay the host |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud | Self-hosted on Railway or any VPS |
| Rough monthly cost | Public list price not verified this run | Hosting only — no SaaS seat meter in this repo |
- Vitess
Apache-2.0 MySQL clustering and sharding
- TiDB
Apache-2.0 MySQL-compatible distributed SQL if you want that lineage
FAQ
- What is the best free open-source PlanetScale alternative?
- The best open-source alternative to PlanetScale is Vitess or TiDB, self-hosted on Railway. MySQL you scale yourself. Vitess is Apache-2.0 sharding; TiDB is Apache-2.0 distributed SQL — PlanetScale without the serverless seat.
- Is it free?
- The Vitess / TiDB licenses are open source or fair-code. You still pay hosting (Railway or any VPS) and any APIs the stack calls. There is no PlanetScale seat or task bill on this path.
- Can I migrate from PlanetScale?
- Yes. Start with the workflows or data you actually use, then cut over. The Vitess / TiDB stack page has the agent prompt and the cost table; most teams rebuild the slice that matters and leave old PlanetScale links until they expire.
- How do I deploy it?
- Open the Vitess / TiDB stack, copy the agent prompt, and deploy on Railway (one service, PORT, and a volume when the app needs disk). Placeholder: Vitess is several components (vtgate, vtctld, MySQL tablets). TiDB is a cluster. A single Railway service is often the wrong size — a VM or Kubernetes is the honest path. No one-click template in this repo yet — Start on Railway. Postgres stays on /stacks/cloudnativepg-postgres.
- What does this replace?
- PlanetScale. The published small-team estimate on this stack is $1,200 a year.
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