Supabase vs Cloudways
The open source Firebase alternative with Postgres
vs. Managed cloud hosting across DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS, Google Cloud
Pricing tiers
Supabase
Free
Perfect for experiments. Projects pause after 7 days inactivity.
Free
Pro
Production-ready. Usage-based overages apply.
$25/mo
Team
For teams; includes SOC2 attestation and priority support.
$599/mo
Enterprise
Custom quotas, HIPAA compliance, dedicated support.
Custom
Cloudways
Autonomous — Free Trial
3-day free trial. 1 server, 20 GB disk, 150 GB bandwidth.
Free
Flexible — DO Micro
DigitalOcean-backed. 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage, 2 TB bandwidth. Starting tier.
$11/mo
Flexible — DO Medium
4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 160 GB, 5 TB bandwidth.
$88/mo
Autonomous — Growth
WordPress-optimized autoscaling. 1 baseline server, 20 GB disk, 150 GB bandwidth.
$100/mo
Autonomous — Scale
2 baseline servers, 50 GB disk, 250 GB bandwidth.
$200/mo
Flexible — DO 8XL
24 vCPU, 128 GB RAM, 2.56 TB storage, 11 TB bandwidth.
$342/mo
Autonomous — Plus
3 baseline servers, 100 GB disk, 1 TB bandwidth.
$400/mo
Enterprise
Custom autoscale, volume pricing.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Supabase vs auto-free-trial on Cloudways.
| Metric | Supabase | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|
| bandwidth gb | 5 GB/month | — |
| db storage gb | 0.5 GB | — |
| edge invocations | 500000 invocations/month | — |
| file storage gb | 1 GB | — |
| mau | 50000 users/month | — |
| realtime messages | 2000000 messages/month | — |
Features
Supabase · 24 features
- Authentication — Complete JWT-based auth: passwords, magic links, OTP, OAuth, SSO, phone, MFA.
- Backups & PITR — Automatic daily backups + Point-in-Time Recovery (WAL-G). 14-day default PITR wi…
- Compute Instances — Upgradeable DB compute: Micro, Small, Medium, Large. Affects CPU, RAM, and conne…
- Connection Pooling — Supavisor pooler: Session mode (persistent) and Transaction mode (serverless). D…
- Cron Jobs — Scheduled recurring jobs via pg_cron. Trigger DB functions, edge functions, or H…
- Custom Domains — Configure custom hostname for API endpoints with SSL certificate management.
- Database Webhooks — Async HTTP callbacks on INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE via pg_net extension.
- Edge Functions — TypeScript (Deno runtime) functions deployed globally at the edge. Supports secr…
- Full-Text Search — PostgreSQL native FTS: to_tsvector, to_tsquery, GIN indexes, fuzzy matching, wei…
- Image Transformations — On-the-fly resize, crop, quality (20-100), WebP auto-format. Smart CDN caching. …
- Log Drains — Route all stack logs to HTTP, Datadog, Loki, Sentry, S3, OTLP, or Axiom. Up to 2…
- Metrics API — ~200 Prometheus-compatible Postgres metrics. OpenTelemetry export to Datadog, Gr…
- Network Restrictions — CIDR allowlist for database access. Multiple IP ranges supported. Pro+ plan.
- OAuth 2.1 Server — Use Supabase Auth as OAuth provider. Custom Access Token Hooks for claim injecti…
- pgvector — Store and search vector embeddings in Postgres. Supports HNSW/Flat indexes, cosi…
- PostgreSQL Database — Full PostgreSQL per project: SQL editor, table editor, CSV import, 50+ extension…
- PostgreSQL Extensions — 50+ pre-installed extensions: uuid-ossp, pgvector, pg_cron, plv8, pgtap, pg_net,…
- Preview Branches — Ephemeral or persistent DB branches for isolated testing. Git integration, auto-…
- Queues — Exactly-once message queues built on pgmq. Stored in Postgres with configurable …
- Read Replicas — Async read-only replicas in multiple regions. Geo-routing, replication lag monit…
- Realtime — WebSocket subscriptions for DB changes (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE), broadcast, and pr…
- Row Level Security — SQL-native access control; policies auto-filter rows based on auth.uid() / auth.…
- SSL Enforcement — Require TLS for all DB connections. Configurable: required, preferred, disabled.
- Storage — Files, Analytics (Iceberg), and Vector buckets with global CDN (285+ cities) and…
Cloudways · 17 features
- Autonomous (WordPress) — Fully managed WordPress with autoscaling.
- Backups — Automated daily + on-demand. Retention configurable.
- Bot Protection — Cloudflare Enterprise bot filtering add-on.
- Bot Scaler — Autonomous: auto-scale based on traffic patterns.
- Breeze (WP cache plugin) — In-house WordPress caching plugin.
- CloudwaysCDN — Built-in CDN add-on (StackPath-backed).
- Flexible Plans — BYO-sized servers on any of 5 providers. Full control over stack.
- Free Let's Encrypt SSL — 1-click cert install + auto-renewal.
- Free Migration — 1 free app migration per plan. Cloudways team moves your site.
- Horizontal Scaling — Auto-scale app servers (Autonomous plans).
- Malware Protection — Add-on ($4/app/month). Scan + clean.
- Object Cache Pro — Included on certain plans. Redis-backed object cache for WP.
- SafeUpdates — Automated WordPress plugin/theme updates with rollback.
- Staging Environments — 1-click staging clones with push-to-live.
- Team Collaboration — Invite team members with granular role permissions.
- Thunderstack (Optimized) — Apache + Nginx + Varnish + Redis + Memcached preconfigured for speed.
- Vertical Scaling — Resize server specs without migration.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Supabase | Cloudways |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Supabase CLI | — |
| SDK | C# SDK, Flutter SDK, JavaScript SDK, Kotlin SDK, Python SDK, Swift SDK | — |
| REST | Management API, REST API (PostgREST) | Cloudways API |
| GRAPHQL | GraphQL (pg_graphql) | — |
| MCP | Supabase MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Realtime (WebSocket) | Cloudways Platform (web UI), Server SSH Access, SFTP |
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