Supabase alternatives: Firebase, Appwrite, Nhost, PocketBase and when none of them are the fix
Supabase alternatives compared by what they actually replace - the database, the auth layer, or the billing and workspace layer Supabase never had in the first place.
In short
Firebase, Appwrite, Nhost and PocketBase are the direct Supabase swaps - same category, different database tradeoffs, none with built-in billing or workspace roles. If that is the actual gap, BuildBase bundles billing, RBAC and workflows alongside auth in one SDK, against a database you never touch directly.
Every "Supabase alternatives" list sorts by the same axis: relational versus document store, managed versus self-hosted, SQL versus GraphQL. That question matters if the database is what's bothering you. It says nothing if what's bothering you is that Supabase, like every name on these lists, never shipped a billing product or a workspace.
The one-paragraph answer
Leaving Supabase for a different database shape? Firebase, PocketBase and Appwrite are the honest picks, each trading Postgres for something else - Firestore, embedded SQLite, or a fuller self-hosted stack. Nhost keeps you on Postgres and swaps in Hasura's GraphQL layer instead, which is a narrower bet worth making only if GraphQL was already the plan. None of the four add subscription billing or workspace roles. They replace the database, not what sits above it. If that layer is the actual gap, BuildBase is worth a look for the same reason it belongs on the Firebase alternatives list: 20 modules including billing and per-workspace RBAC, bundled into @buildbase/sdk, against a database you never touch directly.
What Supabase actually leaves you to build
Supabase leaves you to build billing and workspace roles entirely on your own, and every alternative on this list does too. Supabase itself is a managed Postgres instance with auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs, realtime subscriptions on table changes, and its own auth, storage and edge functions on top. The database is the product - everything else exists to make it easier to reach from a client app. Every alternative here inherits that gap. None of them are SaaS platforms, so a Postgres row has no idea what a subscription plan is. You model billing and workspace membership yourself, then keep that logic in sync by hand, every time the product changes, which is more of a maintenance job than anyone signs up for. See Supabase vs BuildBase for the full breakdown, feature by feature.
Where each alternative fits
Firebase - the mobile-first swap. Firestore trades Postgres rows for a document store, paired with Firebase Auth, Cloud Functions and native client SDKs across iOS, Android, Flutter and Unity. If mobile reach or offline-first sync is the actual requirement, this is the only name on this list built for it - see the full Firebase comparison and the Firebase alternatives roundup for where it sits against the others. Pricing is the Spark free tier or Blaze, which is pure pay-as-you-go metered against Google Cloud rates rather than a monthly plan. It carries the same absence of billing and workspace RBAC that sent you looking in the first place.
Appwrite - open source, self-hosted from day one. Appwrite covers database, auth, storage and functions, and its managed cloud runs the same code you'd run on your own servers. That's a direct answer to vendor lock-in - self-host the exact stack you'd otherwise rent, and the hosting bill is whatever your own servers cost. On the cloud side there's a free tier and a paid Pro plan; check appwrite.io for its current price, which its pricing page did not state when we last looked. RBAC and billing don't disappear either way, though. Appwrite hands you the primitives, not the feature.
Nhost - Postgres plus GraphQL, if that's the stack. Nhost is the closest like-for-like Supabase swap on this list: managed Postgres, auth, storage and serverless functions, with Hasura's GraphQL layer sitting in front instead of Supabase's own API generator. There's a free Starter tier, and Pro is $25/mo with compute billed on top of it as credits, so the headline price is a floor rather than the bill. Worth choosing over Supabase itself mainly if GraphQL specifically, not REST, is what the team already wants.
PocketBase - the single-binary option. PocketBase is a different shape entirely: one self-hosted binary with embedded SQLite, built-in auth, realtime subscriptions and an admin UI, and no managed cloud product at all. It's free because there's no vendor charging for it - your only cost is wherever you run the binary. That also means no roadmap to depend on, and no support line to call when something breaks at 2am. It is still pre-1.0 as of writing, which is worth knowing before it goes under something that has to stay up.
BuildBase - when the SaaS layer was the actual gap. If none of the four above solves the real problem - a paying customer needs a workspace, a workspace needs members, a member needs a role, and a plan change has to update all three at once - that's the layer none of them sell. BuildBase bundles subscription billing and credit metering, workspaces with RBAC, workflow automation and eight user-facing auth methods (email/password, Google, LinkedIn, GitHub, Microsoft, magic link, passkeys, OAuth 2.0) plus API tokens for server-to-server calls, into @buildbase/sdk.
Launch starts at $49/mo for 25,000 MAU, 1,000 workspaces and 10GB storage; Grow and Scale raise every one of those ceilings. There's no free plan, and that is a real gap here: Supabase, Appwrite, Nhost and Firebase all have one, and PocketBase costs nothing at all. What we have instead is a 7-day trial that doesn't ask for a card. Current numbers live at /pricing.
| Feature | BuildBase | Supabase |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Launch, $49/mo - no free plan, 7-day trial without a card | Free tier, then Pro at $25/mo with MAU, disk and storage metered above the included allowance |
| Database | Not a product feature - bring your own | Managed Postgres, direct SQL access |
| Subscription billing | Built in, credit metering included | Not provided - wired to your own Stripe account |
| Workspace RBAC | Built in, roles and permissions per workspace | Not a feature - modeled in your own schema |
| Self-hostable | Proprietary SaaS, self-hosted deployment available | Self-hostable end to end (see Fairness note below) |
| Realtime | Real-time Slack alerts on events; audience segments update periodically | Realtime subscriptions on raw table changes |
| Auth methods | 8 built in: email/password, Google, LinkedIn, GitHub, Microsoft, magic link, passkeys, OAuth 2.0 | Email, magic links and social providers on your own Postgres row |
Where Supabase wins
Three things Supabase does that BuildBase genuinely does not, and none are close calls. Supabase gives you a real Postgres instance you can run arbitrary SQL against, install extensions on and connect any Postgres client to. BuildBase exposes no database to query directly - everything goes through the SDK instead. Self-hosting is the second one. Supabase is open source and self-hostable from the ground up, database included. BuildBase offers a self-hosted deployment instead, but the platform itself stays proprietary. Realtime is the third: Supabase streams row-level changes straight from Postgres to a client, where BuildBase's realtime story is event-based Slack alerts, not a live feed of your data. Want any of those three? Supabase is built for it and we are not.
How to actually decide
Match the alternative to the gap you actually hit, not the one every roundup assumes. Want a different database shape - document store, embedded SQLite, or GraphQL over Postgres? Firebase, PocketBase and Nhost answer that directly, and Appwrite adds a fuller self-hosted stack to the same question. Want to remove the vendor entirely and own the infrastructure? Appwrite or PocketBase, depending on how much stack you want to run yourself. And if the real gap was never the database - if it was that a paying customer needed a workspace, a role, and a subscription that stayed in sync, and Supabase was never going to give you any of the three - that's what Supabase vs BuildBase and the real cost of stitching a stack together yourself go into in more detail than a roundup like this one can.
Every competitor figure above was read off the vendor's own pricing page and verified 24 September 2026: supabase.com/pricing, firebase.google.com/pricing, appwrite.io/pricing and nhost.io/pricing. PocketBase publishes no pricing at all, because it ships as a self-hosted binary rather than a paid product. All four of the paid ones meter something above the headline plan - MAU, compute, storage or egress - so treat the monthly number as a floor and check the page yourself before you budget against it. Supabase in full detail is in Supabase vs BuildBase, and Firebase in Firebase vs BuildBase.