A branch in Neon is a lightweight, copy-on-write clone of your database. It inherits both the schema and data from its parent, but shares the same underlying storage. That means branches are fast to create, cost-efficient to run, and safe to discard.
Key properties of Neon branches:
- Instant creation. Branches spin up in seconds even for terabyte-scale datasets. There’s no exporting, importing, or replication setup.
- Copy-on-write storage. A new branch references its parent’s data until changes are made. Then, only the diffs are written.
- Ephemeral by design. Idle branches scale to zero automatically. You only pay for active compute and the storage you actually use.
- Resettable. Any branch can be instantly reset to match its parent. No teardown scripts. No fragile seed files.