Can end users of a Neon partner use the Neon console?
I notice that in Vercel documentation:
https://vercel.com/docs/storage/vercel-postgres
Unsupported Neon features
Vercel Postgres is a first-party integration with Neon, and many of Neon's features are available with Vercel Postgres. However, there are some differences worth noting:
- Accessing the Neon web console is not supported
- Database branching is not currently supported, but will be in the future
Also in Neon's Replit demo:
Integrating with Neon via the API - Replit Example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aufotqDSmmE
This demo shows the end user's experience of Neon entirely inside Replit. There is no mention of whether the end user can ever go to the Neon console.
Do partners have the same pricing terms as Neon customers do?
It seems like a significant cost on the Neon partner if the expectation is to create a UX for a key feature of the Neon console like branching or managing keys.
Vercel Postgres
Vercel Postgres is a serverless SQL database designed to integrate with Vercel Functions and your frontend framework.
11 Replies
exotic-emeraldOP•2y ago
For example, Replit docs:
https://docs.replit.com/hosting/databases/postgresql-on-replit
Connection pooling: If you need to enable connection pooling for any reason, you can contact us, and we'll do it manually. More information on connection pooling can be found in the neon documentation.
Replit takes the responsibility of enabling connection pooling manually. That's probably not a common occurrence for Replit. But still, it's early days for the Neon program and there will be more features over time. It would be easier on the partner to be able to point the end user to their respective Neon console.
PostgreSQL on Replit | Replit Docs
What is PostgreSQL?
wise-white•2y ago
Hi, unfortunately, you would not be able to access a partner database through the Neon console. As you might imagine, Neon partners have a special pricing arrangement that makes offering Neon through their platform viable. Partners are able to offer an integrated service, Neon is able to reach more users 🙂
exotic-emeraldOP•2y ago
Thanks, Daniel. yes, even as it stands today the neon partner program is a win-win. I do think that Neon will be very feature-rich (and successful 🙂 ) over time and the partner may be better suited to design the particular things about their application and let Neon handle the very db-specific features that every end user would want, like branch and PiTR.
Like today, the direct Neon experience has a lot more features for the end user than the Vercel Postgres experience does, and that gap will probably grow as opposed to shrink
Hi @Daniel - is there any open source code or pre-built Neon console that a Neon partner can expose to the end user? It seems like both Vercel and Replit could benefit by having a project dashboard like what neon.tech console already has.
wise-white•2y ago
Hi @Matt Luo Unfortunately, not as of today.
correct-apricot•2y ago
@Daniel I believe there has been talk of disassembling the cloud repo, so that we could open-source the console, but it is work because the control plane is there too. I don't think anybody has talked about that in a while though.
wise-white•2y ago
It would be nice to provide that option!
exotic-emeraldOP•2y ago
Thanks @Tristan Partin , @Daniel , yes I think it would enable "bring your own database" for end users.
I am considering becoming a Neon partner so that I can pre-load my end user's Postgres with a schema definition that I designed. My relationship with the end user would primarily be about providing and experimenting with business data. But, the end user would need to be able to branch, auto-scale, etc. on their own.
correct-apricot•2y ago
If we do go with what I said, I think the control plane would still be closed source. But nothing is written in stone.
wise-white•2y ago
We have a project sharing feature that might fit your use case. You create a paid Neon account where you create a project per client/user, set up the database as you like. Your client/user signs up for a Free Tier Neon account. You share your project with that user/client. They can do everything in that project from the Neon Console except delete it. https://neon.tech/docs/guides/project-sharing-guide
Neon
Project sharing - Neon Docs
You can share a Neon project with other users, giving them access to your Neon project from all supported Neon interfaces, including the Neon Console, Neon API, and Neon CLI. Follow this guide to lear...
exotic-emeraldOP•2y ago
Thanks @Daniel , looks promising. I think this solves a lot. I just need to think through the billing, since the db owner gets the bill
wise-white•2y ago
Yeah, in this scenario, you get the bill because you are sharing the project. Your users could share a project with you, too 🙂