Supabase
Open source Postgres development platform with auth, instant APIs, realtime, storage and edge functions.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $25 a month (Pro), plus usage above the included limitsOpen source yesStars 114knpm a week 35M
Pocketbase alternatives
11 tools you can use instead of Pocketbase, ranked by live GitHub stars and npm downloads. Supabase, Redis and MongoDB Atlas are the most used. Stats updated 5 hours ago.
Supabase and Appwrite are the closest alternatives if you want a managed cloud service: both are open source backend platforms with hosted plans. Firebase is Google's hosted backend and is not open source.
When Pocketbase is not a good fit
PocketBase is an open source backend that ships as a single executable file, combining an embedded SQLite database, authentication, file storage, realtime subscriptions and an admin dashboard. It's written in Go, released under the MIT license, and is self-hosted only, with no official managed cloud offering. Developers run the binary on their own server or extend it with Go or JavaScript.
It is a weaker choice for:
- Teams that want a managed cloud service with no server to operate, since PocketBase has no official hosted plan
- Applications that need to scale writes across multiple servers, since SQLite is a single-file, single-writer database
- Large teams needing built-in multi-region replication or horizontal scaling out of the box
The alternatives
Most used first.
Pocketbase vs Supabase
Redis
In-memory data store used as a cache, database and message broker, available self-hosted or as Redis Cloud.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from about $0.007 an hour, with a $5 a month minimum, for the Essentials planOpen source noStars 77.1knpm a week 17M
MongoDB Atlas
MongoDB's fully managed cloud database service, with a free tier and usage-based paid tiers.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from about $0.011 an hour (up to $30 a month) for the Flex tier, or $0.08 an hour for the smallest Dedicated (M10) tierOpen source noStars 28.7knpm a week 18M
Firebase
Google's backend-as-a-service platform for mobile and web apps: database, auth, hosting and functions.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from Blaze plan is pay-as-you-go on top of the same free limits, billed through Google CloudOpen source noStars 5.2knpm a week 12M
Neon
Serverless Postgres platform with autoscaling and instant branching, owned by Databricks.
Pricing FreemiumOpen source yesStars 23.3knpm a week 5.2M
Upstash
Serverless data platform with Redis, Vector, QStash, Workflow, Box and Blob, billed per request.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from Redis pay as you go at $0.20 per 100,000 commands; fixed plans from $10 a monthOpen source nonpm a week 6.3M
Turso
Distributed SQLite database platform built on libSQL, with databases deployable close to users.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $4.99 a month for the Developer planOpen source noStars 17.3knpm a week 4.1M
Appwrite
Open source backend platform bundling database, auth, storage, functions and messaging.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $25 a month per project for the Pro planOpen source yesStars 57.8knpm a week 53.8k
CockroachDB
Distributed SQL database from Cockroach Labs, sold as a cloud service or licensed to self-host.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.092 per vCPU-hour on Standard (AWS us-east-1)Open source noStars 32.6k
Convex
Reactive backend platform with a TypeScript database, server functions and real-time sync built in.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $25 a developer a month for the Professional planOpen source noStars 12.8knpm a week 2M
PlanetScale
Managed database platform built on Vitess, now offering both MySQL and Postgres.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $5 a month for a single-node Postgres instanceOpen source noStars 1.2knpm a week 493k
Pocketbase and its alternatives, side by side
| Tool | Pricing | Free plan | Paid from | Open source | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pocketbase | Open source | Yes, PocketBase is free and self-hosted; there is no paid managed version | Not listed | Yes, MIT | 61.6k |
| Supabase | Freemium | Yes: 2 active projects, 500 MB database, 50,000 monthly active users, 1 GB file storage. Projects pause after 1 week of inactivity. | $25 a month (Pro), plus usage above the included limits | Yes, Apache-2.0 | 114k |
| Redis | Freemium | Yes: Redis Cloud's free tier includes up to 30 MB of storage on a shared deployment | about $0.007 an hour, with a $5 a month minimum, for the Essentials plan | No | 77.1k |
| MongoDB Atlas | Freemium | Yes: the M0 tier, free forever, with 512 MB storage, shared RAM and vCPU | about $0.011 an hour (up to $30 a month) for the Flex tier, or $0.08 an hour for the smallest Dedicated (M10) tier | No | 28.7k |
| Firebase | Freemium | Yes: the Spark plan, with no-cost usage limits and no payment method required | Blaze plan is pay-as-you-go on top of the same free limits, billed through Google Cloud | No | 5.2k |
| Neon | Freemium | Yes: 0.5 GB storage and 100 compute hours a month per project, no credit card required | Not listed | Yes, Apache-2.0 (core storage engine) | 23.3k |
| Upstash | Pay as you go | Yes. Redis free tier: 256 MB data, 500,000 commands a month, 10 GB bandwidth. | Redis pay as you go at $0.20 per 100,000 commands; fixed plans from $10 a month | No | None |
| Turso | Freemium | Yes: 100 databases, 5 GB storage, 500 million rows read and 10 million rows written a month | $4.99 a month for the Developer plan | No | 17.3k |
| Appwrite | Freemium | Yes: 75,000 monthly requests, bandwidth and storage included, unlimited projects | $25 a month per project for the Pro plan | Yes, BSD-3-Clause | 57.8k |
| CockroachDB | Pay as you go | Cloud: 30-day trial with $400 in credit. Self-hosted: Enterprise Free for individuals and businesses under $10M in annual revenue. | $0.092 per vCPU-hour on Standard (AWS us-east-1) | No | 32.6k |
| Convex | Freemium | Yes: 25 million function calls, 50 GB database storage, 100 GB file storage and 50 GB data egress a month included | $25 a developer a month for the Professional plan | No | 12.8k |
| PlanetScale | Pay as you go | No, there is no free plan; the Base plan is pay-as-you-go with no monthly minimum contract | $5 a month for a single-node Postgres instance | No | 1.2k |
Pricing facts come from each tool's official pricing page, with the checked date on the tool's own page.
Questions
What is the most popular alternative to Pocketbase?
By GitHub stars, Supabase is the most used alternative to Pocketbase listed on ScratchDB, with 114k stars.
Which Pocketbase alternatives are open source?
Supabase, Neon and Appwrite are open source.
Which Pocketbase alternatives have a free plan?
Supabase, Redis, MongoDB Atlas, Firebase, Neon, Upstash, Turso, Appwrite and Convex have a free plan. The table on this page shows what each one includes.