Alternatives to Nhost
Postgres backend platform with auth and GraphQL.
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.
Nhost is an open-source backend platform built on PostgreSQL with instant GraphQL APIs, authentication, storage, and serverless functions.
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.
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.
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.
Where Nhost stands out
Verified capabilities most alternatives don't have.
Why people leave Nhost
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
Sign in to add a reason — new reasons go through moderation before appearing.
Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Neon is a serverless Postgres platform with instant database branching, autoscaling, and scale-to-zero; open source with a managed cloud.
Turso is a distributed database platform built on libSQL (an open-source SQLite fork) for low-latency edge access and per-tenant databases.
YugabyteDB is an open-source distributed SQL database compatible with PostgreSQL, offered as the managed YugabyteDB Aeon cloud or self-hosted for resilient, geo-distributed apps.
PlanetScale is a managed MySQL and Postgres database platform built on Vitess, with horizontal sharding, database branching, and non-blocking schema changes.
Aiven is a managed data platform for open-source engines (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Kafka, OpenSearch, Valkey, and more) across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database that scales horizontally and survives failures, offered as CockroachDB Cloud (serverless and dedicated) and self-hosted.
Timescale (TigerData) is a managed Postgres platform optimized for time-series, events, and real-time analytics, with hypertables, compression, and continuous aggregates.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Managed database hosting checklist (17 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Managed database hosting checklist | Nhost | Neon | Turso | YugabyteDB | PlanetScale | Aiven |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Database engine (Postgres) | ||||||
| Database engine (MySQL) | ||||||
| Serverless / autoscaling | ||||||
| Database branching | ||||||
| Free tier | ||||||
| Connection pooling | ||||||
| Point-in-time recovery | ||||||
| Read replicas | ||||||
| Built-in REST/GraphQL API | ||||||
| Built-in auth | ||||||
| Edge / global replication | ||||||
| Open source | ||||||
| Self-hostable |
Every fact and feature listed for Nhost is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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License MIT verified 2026-07-17
Confirmed via GitHub API as well: license.spdx_id 'MIT', license.name 'MIT License'.
MIT License Copyright (c) 2021 Nhost
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nhost/nhost/main/LICENSE -
Pricing model OSS + paid hosting verified 2026-07-17
100% open-source (MIT) and self-hostable via Docker Compose per GitHub README, plus a managed Nhost Cloud with free and paid subscription tiers.
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
https://nhost.io/pricing -
Starts at $25 USD/month (Pro plan, cheapest paid tier) verified 2026-07-17
A permanent free Starter tier ($0/month, 1 project) also exists; self-hosting is free (open source).
Pro Well suited for production applications, scale as needed. From $25 / month $15 in compute credits included
https://nhost.io/pricing -
Platforms Web verified 2026-07-17
Managed cloud backend platform accessed via web dashboard, CLI, and SDKs; source is also self-hostable (see self-hostable cell).
Nhost Cloud Self Hosted
https://nhost.io/pricing -
Status active verified 2026-07-17
GitHub repo shows commits pushed same day as this research (2026-07-17); repo not archived.
pushed_at: 2026-07-17T10:50:34Z, archived: false
https://api.github.com/repos/nhost/nhost -
Database engine (Postgres) Yes verified 2026-07-17
All Nhost projects have their own dedicated PostgreSQL instance, an advanced, open-source object-relational database system
https://docs.nhost.io/products/database -
Database engine (MySQL) No verified 2026-07-17
No mention of MySQL anywhere in Nhost docs, pricing page, or GitHub README; Nhost's database offering is exclusively PostgreSQL.
All Nhost projects have their own dedicated PostgreSQL instance
https://docs.nhost.io/products/database -
Serverless / autoscaling Partial verified 2026-07-17
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
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.
https://docs.nhost.io/platform/cloud/service-replicas -
Database branching No verified 2026-07-17
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
You can restore to a specific point in time on a different project in our cloud by following these steps
https://docs.nhost.io/products/database/backups -
Free tier Yes verified 2026-07-17
Free tier is permanent but the single project pauses after 1 week of inactivity.
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
https://nhost.io/pricing -
Connection pooling Yes verified 2026-07-17
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.
https://docs.nhost.io/products/database/access -
Point-in-time recovery Yes verified 2026-07-17
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.
Enable
https://docs.nhost.io/products/database/backups -
Read replicas No verified 2026-07-17
Explicitly states Postgres replica support is not yet available ('coming next').
Replicas can be set for Hasura, Auth, Storage, and Run Services, Postgres support is coming next
https://docs.nhost.io/platform/cloud/service-replicas -
Built-in REST/GraphQL API Yes verified 2026-07-17
Get a powerful GraphQL API generated automatically from your database schema. Queries, mutations, and realtime subscriptions with granular permissions, all without writing backend code.
https://nhost.io/product/graphql -
Built-in auth Yes verified 2026-07-17
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,
https://nhost.io/product/auth -
Edge / global replication No verified 2026-07-17
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
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.
https://docs.nhost.io/platform/cloud/subdomain -
Open source Yes verified 2026-07-17
Nhost is an open source Firebase alternative with GraphQL
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nhost/nhost/main/README.md -
Self-hostable Yes verified 2026-07-17
Self-host Nhost for free using the Docker Compose reference implementation, with help from the Discord and GitHub communities.
https://docs.nhost.io/platform/self-hosting/community
FAQ
Yes. Turso and Aiven have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
Neon, Turso and YugabyteDB — every license claim links its source.