PlanetScale

PlanetScale provides a fully managed, serverless MySQL‑compatible platform that lets developers deploy and scale databases without handling underlying infrastructure. The service runs Vitess, an open‑source sharding layer originally built at YouTube, and also offers Postgres hosting, delivering horizontal scalability, high availability, and low‑latency access through a single connection endpoint.

The platform targets applications that require high query throughput and large data volumes, such as those handling millions of queries per second or storing hundreds of terabytes. It supplies NVMe‑based storage for unlimited IOPS, automated failover, and configurable security and compliance options, including a “bring your own cloud” mode for custom deployments.

Key distinguishing features include Vitess’s explicit sharding architecture, which distributes data across many nodes while preserving a unified client interface, and Database Traffic Control™ that lets users set resource budgets for Postgres query traffic. These capabilities enable developers to focus on application logic while the service manages performance, uptime, and scaling.