Does PlanetScale Work With AWS?
PlanetScale works seamlessly with AWS services as a managed database backend for applications running on EC2, Lambda, ECS, and other AWS compute services.
Quick Facts
How PlanetScale Works With AWS
PlanetScale is a MySQL-compatible serverless database that integrates naturally with any AWS service needing a relational database. You connect via standard MySQL connection strings, making it agnostic to the AWS compute layer—whether you're running Node.js on Lambda, Python on EC2, or containers on ECS. The primary integration point is networking: you'll use PlanetScale's connection credentials in your AWS application's environment variables, and PlanetScale handles all scaling and replication automatically. This decoupling means you get the benefits of a fully managed database without being locked into RDS, while keeping your AWS infrastructure flexible. The developer experience is smooth because PlanetScale's branching feature works well for AWS-based CI/CD pipelines, letting you create isolated database branches for testing before deploying to production on AWS infrastructure.
Best Use Cases
Quick Setup
npm install mysql2/promise dotenvimport mysql from 'mysql2/promise';
require('dotenv').config();
const pool = mysql.createPool({
host: process.env.DB_HOST,
user: process.env.DB_USER,
password: process.env.DB_PASSWORD,
database: process.env.DB_NAME,
waitForConnections: true,
connectionLimit: 10,
queueLimit: 0,
ssl: 'amazon'
});
export async function query(sql: string, values?: any[]) {
const conn = await pool.getConnection();
try {
const [result] = await conn.execute(sql, values);
return result;
} finally {
conn.release();
}
}
// Environment variables from PlanetScale dashboard:
// DB_HOST=xxxxx.us-east-2.psdb.cloud
// DB_USER=xxxxx
// DB_PASSWORD=xxxxx
// DB_NAME=myappKnown Issues & Gotchas
Connection pooling required for Lambda due to connection limits
Fix: Use PlanetScale Boost or implement connection pooling with a library like mysql2/promise or Prisma to avoid exhausting available connections
Cross-region latency between AWS regions and PlanetScale's infrastructure
Fix: Choose PlanetScale regions close to your primary AWS region; use read replicas for distributed read-heavy workloads
Data transfer costs if PlanetScale is hosted in different cloud provider regions than AWS
Fix: Verify PlanetScale region placement and consider data transfer costs in billing calculations
Foreign key constraints disabled by default in PlanetScale
Fix: Enable explicitly per table if needed, or enforce constraints in application logic
Alternatives
- •AWS RDS MySQL with Aurora - fully managed within AWS ecosystem but less branching/dev workflow features
- •DynamoDB with AWS - serverless NoSQL if you don't need relational structure
- •Supabase (PostgreSQL) - similar managed database experience with different SQL dialect
Resources
Related Compatibility Guides
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