# Alternatives to Nhost Nhost is an open-source backend platform built on PostgreSQL with instant GraphQL APIs, authentication, storage, and serverless functions. Nhost ranks #4 of 9 in Managed database hosting, with an Alt Score of 68. It is licensed under MIT, open source with paid hosting from $25 USD/month (Pro plan, cheapest paid tier) and available on the web. 13 of 13 checklist rows are verified against a public source. Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/nhost/ Category: Managed database hosting ## Where Nhost stands out - **Built-in auth** — 1 of 8 apps with a verified answer have this - **Built-in REST/GraphQL API** — 1 of 8 apps with a verified answer have this ## Overview - **Who it's for**: Web and mobile app teams who want a Firebase/Supabase-style backend built on plain PostgreSQL, and who value being able to self-host or migrate off the vendor without lock-in. - **What you get**: A dedicated PostgreSQL database per project with an instant Hasura GraphQL API, built-in authentication (email/password, social, WebAuthn, MFA), file storage, and serverless JavaScript/TypeScript functions, managed through a dashboard or the Nhost CLI/nhost.toml config. - **How it works**: Nhost provisions a dedicated Postgres instance and wires it up to Hasura for an auto-generated, realtime GraphQL API with row/column-level permissions; Auth and Storage services run alongside it and share the same database and permission model. The full stack is 100% open source (MIT) and can be run locally or self-hosted via Docker Compose, or used as Nhost's managed cloud service with automated backups, point-in-time recovery, and autoscaling backend service replicas. ## Profile - **License**: MIT (verified 2026-07-17) - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting (verified 2026-07-17) - **Starts at**: $25 USD/month (Pro plan, cheapest paid tier) (verified 2026-07-17) - **Platforms**: Web - **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-17) ## Ranked alternatives | # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms | |---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------| | 1 | [Neon](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/neon.md) | 79 | Apache-2.0 | Web | | 2 | [Turso](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/turso.md) | 72 | MIT | Web | | 3 | [YugabyteDB](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/yugabytedb.md) | 72 | Apache-2.0 | macOS, Linux, Web | | 4 | [PlanetScale](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/planetscale.md) | 66 | Proprietary | Web | | 5 | [Aiven](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/aiven.md) | 62 | Proprietary platform (manages open-source engines: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, OpenSearch, Valkey, ClickHouse, etc.) | Web | | 6 | [CockroachDB](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/cockroachdb.md) | 62 | CockroachDB Software License (CSL) — proprietary, non-OSI, requires a License Key for production use | Web | | 7 | [Timescale](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/timescale.md) | 62 | Apache License 2.0 (core) + Timescale License (TSL, for features in the tsl/ directory) | Windows, macOS, Linux, Web | | 8 | [Xata](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/xata.md) | 55 | Proprietary platform (Xata Cloud); core engine + self-managed OSS plan are Apache-2.0 | Web | Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/ ## Feature comparison Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified). | Managed database hosting checklist | Nhost | Neon | Turso | YugabyteDB | PlanetScale | Aiven | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Pricing model | OSS + paid hosting | Usage-based | Freemium | OSS + paid hosting | Usage-based | Freemium | | Starts at | $25 USD/month (Pro plan, cheapest paid tier) | $0.106/CU-hour (Launch plan compute, pay-as-you-go, no monthly minimum) | $5.99/month (Developer plan; $4.99/month billed yearly) | $125 / vCPU / month (Standard tier, YugabyteDB Aeon) | $5/month | $5/month (Developer plan, PostgreSQL/MySQL) | | License | MIT | Apache-2.0 | MIT | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary | Proprietary platform (manages open-source engines: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, OpenSearch, Valkey, ClickHouse, etc.) | | Platforms | Web | Web | Web | macOS, Linux, Web | Web | Web | | Database engine (Postgres) | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Database engine (MySQL) | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | | Serverless / autoscaling | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | | Database branching | No | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | | Free tier | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | | Connection pooling | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Point-in-time recovery | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Read replicas | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Built-in REST/GraphQL API | Yes | Partial | Partial | No | No | ? | | Built-in auth | Yes | Partial | No | No | No | ? | | Edge / global replication | No | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | | Open source | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | | Self-hostable | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | No | ## Sources Sources for Nhost. Each alternative is sourced on its own page. - **License**: MIT — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Confirmed via GitHub API as well: license.spdx_id 'MIT', license.name 'MIT License'. - Quote: “MIT License Copyright (c) 2021 Nhost” - **Pricing model**: OSS + paid hosting — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: 100% open-source (MIT) and self-hostable via Docker Compose per GitHub README, plus a managed Nhost Cloud with free and paid subscription tiers. - Quote: “Nhost Cloud Self Hosted Starter Get your idea off the ground for free. $0 / month ... Pro Well suited for production applications, scale as needed. From $25 / month” - **Starts at**: $25 USD/month (Pro plan, cheapest paid tier) — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: A permanent free Starter tier ($0/month, 1 project) also exists; self-hosting is free (open source). - Quote: “Pro Well suited for production applications, scale as needed. From $25 / month $15 in compute credits included” - **Platforms**: Web — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Managed cloud backend platform accessed via web dashboard, CLI, and SDKs; source is also self-hostable (see self-hostable cell). - Quote: “Nhost Cloud Self Hosted” - **Status**: active — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: GitHub repo shows commits pushed same day as this research (2026-07-17); repo not archived. - Quote: “pushed_at: 2026-07-17T10:50:34Z, archived: false” - **Database engine (Postgres)**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Quote: “All Nhost projects have their own dedicated PostgreSQL instance, an advanced, open-source object-relational database system” - **Database engine (MySQL)**: No — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: No mention of MySQL anywhere in Nhost docs, pricing page, or GitHub README; Nhost's database offering is exclusively PostgreSQL. - Quote: “All Nhost projects have their own dedicated PostgreSQL instance” - **Serverless / autoscaling**: Partial — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Autoscaling exists for backend services (Hasura, Auth, Storage, Run), but the same page states 'Replicas can be set for Hasura, Auth, Storage, and Run Services, Postgres support is coming next' -- the - Quote: “When enabled, the autoscaler continuously monitors the CPU usage of your service. Its primary goal is to maintain an average CPU utilization of approximately 50% across all replicas.” - **Database branching**: No — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: No database branching feature (e.g. Neon/PlanetScale-style branch-and-merge) is documented anywhere on Nhost's docs or pricing pages; restoring to a new project via backups is the closest capability b - Quote: “You can restore to a specific point in time on a different project in our cloud by following these steps” - **Free tier**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Free tier is permanent but the single project pauses after 1 week of inactivity. - Quote: “Starter Get your idea off the ground for free. $0 / month Limit of 1 project. Project paused after 1 week of inactivity. 1 GB database 1 GB storage 5 GB egress” - **Connection pooling**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Quote: “Public access to your database utilizes pgbouncer. As this pooler is shared infrastructure the pooler will still be available even if your database has no public access configured.” - **Point-in-time recovery**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Point-in-Time Recovery" ... Add the following to your `nhost.toml`: [postgres.pitr] retention = 7" — Paid-tier feature: pricing page lists Point-in-time recovery as 'Starts at $100 with 7 days retention' on Pro and Team plans, not included on the free Starter plan. - Quote: “Enable ” - **Read replicas**: No — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Explicitly states Postgres replica support is not yet available ('coming next'). - Quote: “Replicas can be set for Hasura, Auth, Storage, and Run Services, Postgres support is coming next” - **Built-in REST/GraphQL API**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Quote: “Get a powerful GraphQL API generated automatically from your database schema. Queries, mutations, and realtime subscriptions with granular permissions, all without writing backend code.” - **Built-in auth**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Quote: “Production-ready authentication for web and mobile apps. Focus on your product, not reinventing auth flows. ... Multiple authentication methods Support for email/password, social logins, passwordless,” - **Edge / global replication**: No — (verified 2026-07-17) - Note: Each project is deployed to a single chosen region; no automatic multi-region/edge database replication is documented, and the service-replicas docs confirm Postgres replica support is not yet availab - Quote: “When you set up a new project in Nhost Cloud, you're assigned a subdomain that, along with the region where the project was created, allows you to generate the different URLs for your services.” - **Open source**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Quote: “Nhost is an open source Firebase alternative with GraphQL” - **Self-hostable**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-17) - Quote: “Self-host Nhost for free using the Docker Compose reference implementation, with help from the Discord and GitHub communities.” --- Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/