2 Best Open-Source Alternatives to Supabase in 2026
By Noahlast updated pricing verified
Compared: open-source alternatives to Supabase
| Alternative | Best for | Standout | Biggest weakness | Learning curve | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supabasereference | developers who want a Postgres-based backend (auth, storage, realtime, auto-generated APIs) they can self-host later, rather than committing to a proprietary NoSQL platform like Firebase | Auto-generated REST, GraphQL, and Realtime APIs derived straight from a project's Postgres schema, with Row Level Security enforcing per-row authorization at the database layer instead of in application code. | Pricing beyond the $25/month Pro base is usage-based and billed per project rather than per account, so teams running multiple projects or exceeding the 100,000 MAU / 250GB egress limits can see invoices climb well past the advertised starting price. | Moderate | Free tier · paid from $25/mo |
| Neon | developers who want instant, low-cost database branching for every pull request or preview deployment without provisioning full new Postgres instances | Instant copy-on-write database branching that forks a full production dataset in seconds, paired with scale-to-zero compute billing so idle branches cost nothing. | Paid tiers are pure usage-based billing with no flat monthly price, so cost is harder to predict up front than a fixed-price competitor, and extra branches beyond the included count cost $1.50/branch-month, which adds up for teams branching aggressively per pull request. | Low | Free |
| Appwrite | developer teams building web, mobile, or Flutter apps that want a Firebase-style backend (auth, database, storage, functions) they can self-host for free instead of relying solely on a vendor's cloud | Fully self-hostable under a permissive BSD-3-Clause license, so teams can run the entire backend on their own infrastructure at no licensing cost instead of being locked into Appwrite's hosted cloud. | The free Appwrite Cloud tier pauses projects after a week of inactivity and offers only community support, and self-hosting shifts the operational burden (updates, scaling, backups) onto the team instead of a managed vendor, which is a real cost some reviewers note as a steeper setup than a pure SaaS backend. | Moderate | Free tier · paid from $25/mo |
Supabase
Neon
Appwrite1.Neon — best Supabase alternative for developers who want instant, low-cost database branching for every pull request or preview deployment without provisioning full new Postgres instances
Neon is the best Supabase alternative for developers who want instant, Git-style database branching and compute that scales to zero when idle, rather than Supabase's always-provisioned project model. Neon's copy-on-write branching forks a full production dataset, schema and data, in seconds for testing migrations or preview deployments, a workflow Supabase doesn't offer natively. Neon's Free plan requires no credit card and includes 100 compute-hours and 10 branches per project, and its Launch tier bills purely on usage at $0.106 per compute-hour and $0.35 per GB-month storage with no monthly minimum, versus Supabase's flat $25/month Pro base plus overages beyond its included $10/month compute credit. Neon holds a 5/5 rating on Product Hunt from 82 reviews, a smaller sample than Supabase's own 5.0/5 from 861 Product Hunt reviews, though both are perfect scores. Supabase is still the better choice for teams that need more than a database: Neon is Postgres-only, without Supabase's bundled S3-compatible file storage, realtime websocket sync, or edge functions, and Neon's scale-to-zero compute introduces a cold-start delay when a suspended branch wakes up, which can affect latency-sensitive workloads.
Compared to Supabase: instant copy-on-write branching vs no native branching, pure usage-based pricing ($0.106/compute-hour) vs Supabase's flat $25/month Pro base, Postgres-only vs Supabase's bundled auth/storage/realtime/functions
Wins:Instant copy-on-write branching forks a full production dataset in seconds, a workflow Supabase doesn't offer natively · Scale-to-zero compute means idle branches and dev databases cost nothing when not in use · Free plan requires no credit card and includes 100 compute-hours plus 10 branches per project
Loses:Postgres-only, without Supabase's bundled S3-compatible file storage, realtime websocket sync, or edge functions · Pure usage-based billing with no flat monthly rate makes budgeting harder to predict than Supabase's $25/month Pro base · Scale-to-zero introduces a cold-start delay when a suspended compute branch wakes up, which can affect latency-sensitive workloads
Pros
- Instant database branching copies a full dataset in seconds instead of requiring a new server provision.
- Scale-to-zero compute means idle branches and dev databases cost nothing when not in use.
- Fully Postgres-compatible, so existing drivers, ORMs, and extensions work without changes.
- Free tier requires no credit card and includes 100 compute-hours plus 10 branches per project.
Cons
- Usage-based pricing with no flat monthly rate makes budgeting harder to predict than fixed-price competitors.
- Extra branches beyond the included count cost $1.50/branch-month, which can add up for teams that branch per pull request.
- Free tier storage is capped at 0.5 GB per project, small for anything beyond prototyping.
- Scale-to-zero introduces a cold-start delay when a suspended compute branch wakes up, which can affect latency-sensitive workloads.
Pricing: Free — Free plan (100 compute-hours, no card required), then $0.106/compute-hour usage-based Launch pricing vs Supabase's free plan plus $25/month Pro (with $10/month compute credit included) (verified undefined NaN, NaN)
2.Appwrite — best Supabase alternative for developer teams building web, mobile, or Flutter apps that want a Firebase-style backend (auth, database, storage, functions) they can self-host for free instead of relying solely on a vendor's cloud
Appwrite is the best Supabase alternative for teams that want a Firebase-style backend, bundling authentication, a database, file storage, functions, and messaging, that they can self-host for free under a permissive license. Appwrite's core is BSD-3-Clause licensed with 57.1K GitHub stars, self-hostable via Docker on any Linux server at no cost, comparable in spirit to Supabase's own Apache-2.0-licensed, self-hostable core built on Postgres. Appwrite Cloud's free tier includes 2GB storage, 750,000 monthly executions, and 75,000 monthly active users, close to Supabase's free plan (500MB database, 50,000 MAU), and its Pro tier costs $25/month, matching Supabase's own $25/month Pro price exactly, though Appwrite's Pro includes 150GB storage and 3.5 million monthly executions. This data set carries no external rating for Appwrite, so its reception can't be compared numerically against Supabase's 5.0/5 from 861 Product Hunt reviews. Supabase is still the better choice for teams that specifically want a Postgres database with auto-generated REST, GraphQL, and Realtime APIs derived from the schema: Appwrite's data model isn't built around exposing a relational schema the same way, and self-hosting Appwrite shifts the operational burden of updates, scaling, and backups onto the team instead of a managed vendor.
Compared to Supabase: BSD-3-Clause self-hostable core (57.1K GitHub stars) vs Supabase's Apache-2.0 core, matching $25/month Pro tier, no external rating on record vs Supabase's 5.0/5 from 861 reviews
Wins:Fully self-hostable under a permissive BSD-3-Clause license via Docker on any Linux server at no licensing cost · Single platform bundles auth, database, storage, functions, and messaging behind one unified API · Free Appwrite Cloud tier includes 75,000 monthly active users, more than Supabase's free-plan cap of 50,000 MAU
Loses:No external rating recorded in this data set, so its reception can't be weighed against Supabase's 5.0/5 from 861 Product Hunt reviews · Free Cloud tier projects pause after a week of inactivity and get community-only support, a limitation similar to Supabase's own free tier · Doesn't auto-generate REST, GraphQL, and Realtime APIs from a relational schema the way Supabase's Postgres-based stack does
Pros
- Fully open source (BSD-3-Clause) and self-hostable for free, avoiding vendor lock-in on a core backend.
- Single platform covers auth, database, storage, functions, and messaging instead of stitching together separate services.
- Broad SDK coverage across major frontend frameworks and mobile platforms including Flutter.
- Free Appwrite Cloud tier is usable for real projects, not just a sandbox, with 75K monthly active users included.
Cons
- Free Cloud tier projects pause after a week of inactivity and get community-only support.
- Self-hosting requires managing updates, scaling, and backups yourself, shifting operational work onto the team.
- Reviewers note initial setup can be more complex than newcomers expect for a 'quick MVP' backend.
- Enterprise features (SSO, compliance certifications, SLAs) require a custom-quote plan rather than being available at a fixed price.
Pricing: Free tier · paid from $25/mo — Free to self-host, or Appwrite Cloud free tier plus $25/month Pro (150GB storage, 3.5M executions) vs Supabase's free plan plus $25/month Pro (with $10/month compute credit included) (verified undefined NaN, NaN)