Supabase earned its popularity honestly. It bet on Postgres when most backend-as-a-service products were building proprietary datastores, it open-sourced the stack, and it bundled auth, realtime subscriptions, storage, and edge functions into one coherent product. If you want a full BaaS on top of real SQL, it's still the reference point.
So why look elsewhere? The reasons I hear most often: you want a plain managed database without the BaaS surface area; free projects pause after a period of inactivity, which stings for low-traffic apps (their [pricing page](https://supabase.com/pricing) documents plan behavior); self-hosting the full stack is genuinely involved; or your app's auth and API patterns are coupled to Supabase's client libraries more deeply than you'd like. Different reasons point to different alternatives, so I've split these six by what they're actually replacing.
If you want managed Postgres, minus the BaaS
Neon
Neon is serverless Postgres with a genuinely novel architecture: storage and compute are separated, so compute can scale to zero when idle and databases can be *branched* like Git repos. Branch-per-preview-deployment is a workflow that feels obvious once you've used it, and nobody else does it as cleanly. The [docs](https://neon.tech/docs/introduction) are excellent and there's a free tier.
What it doesn't do: anything besides Postgres. No auth, no storage buckets, no realtime — you bring your own app platform and glue. Cold starts after scale-to-zero are real, and connection management pushes you toward their pooler. If your complaint about Supabase is "I just wanted the database," Neon is the purest answer on this list.
PandaStack
PandaStack (that's us — bias declared, judge accordingly) approaches it from the app-platform side: managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and Redis, orchestrated by KubeBlocks on Kubernetes, sitting next to the platform that runs your containers, static sites, cronjobs, and edge functions. The distinguishing behavior is the wiring: attach a database to an app and DATABASE_URL is injected automatically — no copying credentials between dashboards. Backups run daily (plus manual snapshots), retained 7/15/30 days depending on plan, and the free tier includes one database alongside five web services. Paid plans are flat and simple: Pro at $15/mo, Premium at $25/mo.
What we don't do: bundle auth, realtime subscriptions, or client SDKs — your app owns those layers, talking to a standard Postgres or MySQL over a normal connection string. And we're the newer platform on this list; the ecosystem around us is still growing compared to the incumbents. If you want app hosting and the database to be one motion — push code, it runs, database attached — that's the case for us.
Railway
Railway is an app platform with databases attached, in the same general shape: provision Postgres (or MySQL, Redis, MongoDB) next to your services, reference variables between them, deploy from Git. The developer experience is polished and the canvas UI for visualizing services is genuinely pleasant. Pricing is usage-based — you pay for the resources you consume — which can be great for small workloads and requires attention as they grow; check their official docs for current details.
The trade-off versus a dedicated database product: Railway's databases are simpler primitives — you're closer to "a Postgres container with a volume" than to a managed service with deep backup/restore tooling, so evaluate the durability story against your needs.
If you want the full BaaS experience
Appwrite
Appwrite is the closest feature-for-feature analog: auth, databases, storage, functions, realtime — open source, self-hostable via Docker Compose, or managed on Appwrite Cloud. The permission model is well thought out and the SDK coverage (including Flutter and Apple platforms, where it's notably strong) is broad. The [docs](https://appwrite.io/docs) are solid.
The key difference from Supabase: Appwrite's database is a document-style API, not raw SQL access to Postgres. You work through Appwrite's abstractions rather than psql and SQL migrations. If your team thinks in SQL, that's a real adjustment; if you're building mobile-first and think in collections anyway, it may not matter at all.
Firebase
The original BaaS, and still the most battle-tested. Firebase Auth is arguably the best managed auth product anywhere, Firestore's offline sync for mobile remains hard to replicate, and the free tier is generous for prototypes. Google-scale reliability is not a marketing line here.
The trade-offs are the famous ones: Firestore is NoSQL with query limitations that surface late in a project's life, pricing is per-operation and can surprise you at scale, and there's no self-hosting or meaningful exit path — migrating off Firestore is a rewrite, not a data export. Choose it deliberately, knowing the lock-in is structural.
PocketBase
The minimalist option: one Go binary, SQLite underneath, with auth, realtime subscriptions, file storage, and an admin UI included. You can be running in under a minute on a $5 VPS, and for hobby projects, internal tools, and small products it's a delight. Read the [docs](https://pocketbase.io/docs/) — they're short, which is the point.
The constraints are inherent to the design: SQLite means a single node (no read replicas, no managed failover), and you're the one operating the server, doing backups, and handling upgrades. PocketBase is honest about being for small-to-medium projects. Within that envelope, it's arguably the best developer experience on this list.
Side by side
| Database | Auth/BaaS included | Self-hostable | Scale-to-zero | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Postgres | Yes | Yes (involved) | Free projects pause | SQL-first BaaS |
| Neon | Postgres | No | No | Yes | Pure serverless Postgres, branching |
| PandaStack | Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis | No (DB + app platform) | No | Apps on free tier | App + DB wired together, flat pricing |
| Railway | Postgres, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB | No | No | Usage-based | Polished DX, services on a canvas |
| Appwrite | Document API (not raw SQL) | Yes | Yes (Docker) | — | Feature-parity BaaS, mobile SDKs |
| Firebase | Firestore (NoSQL) | Yes | No | Pay-per-use | Mobile apps, managed auth |
| PocketBase | SQLite | Yes | Only (single binary) | — | Small apps, one-person ops |
How I'd actually choose
- You only want the database, and preview-branch workflows appeal to you → Neon.
- You want your app and database on one platform with flat, predictable pricing → PandaStack or Railway; pick based on whether you prefer flat plans or usage-based billing.
- You want Supabase's feature set but self-hosted on your own terms → Appwrite, accepting the document model.
- You're building mobile-first and auth quality matters more than SQL → Firebase, eyes open about lock-in.
- It's a side project and you enjoy owning your own server → PocketBase, and honestly, have fun.
None of these are wrong answers; they're different bets on what you'll regret least in two years. If the "push code, database shows up already connected" workflow sounds like your bet, you can try it on https://pandastack.io.