Turso vs Supabase

Side-by-side — pricing, strengths, tradeoffs, and fit.

Turso

SQLite for the edge — low latency, multi-tenant, globally distributed

Supabase

The open-source Firebase alternative with Postgres

At a glance

Open SourceFree Tier
● Established·From Freemium
Open SourceFree TierEnterprise
● Established·From Freemium

Overview

One-liner

SQLite for the edge — low latency, multi-tenant, globally distributed

One-liner

The open-source Firebase alternative with Postgres

Maturity

Established

Maturity

Established

Open source

✓ Yes

Open source

✓ Yes

Pricing

Free tier

✓ Available

Free tier

✓ Available

Starts at

Freemium

Starts at

Freemium

Model

Hybrid

Model

Hybrid

Enterprise

✕ None

Enterprise

✓ Available

Best for

✓ Best for

Solo developers and startup founders building multi-tenant apps who want a per-user database model with SQLite simplicity
Developers building edge or serverless apps who need ultra-low-latency reads
Indie hackers and side projects that want embedded SQLite with remote sync

✓ Best for

Startup founders and indie developers who need a complete backend-as-a-service with auth, database, and storage in one place
Teams moving from Firebase who want a relational database with a generous free tier
Developers who want to self-host their database infrastructure while keeping a familiar UI

Not ideal for

✕ Not for

Applications requiring complex joins across a massive shared dataset
Teams needing Postgres-specific features or extensions

✕ Not for

Teams needing a horizontally sharded database for massive write throughput
Enterprises requiring SOC 2 on the free plan without upgrading to a paid tier

Strengths

↑ Strengths

libSQL (SQLite fork)
Edge deployment
Multi-database per account
Embedded replicas

↑ Strengths

Postgres database
Authentication
Auto-generated REST and GraphQL APIs
Realtime subscriptions

Weaknesses

↓ Weaknesses

—

↓ Weaknesses

Free tier projects are automatically paused after one week of inactivity, limiting continuous availability for hobby projects.
Custom SMTP integration for authentication emails fails with Microsoft Office 365 and Outlook, breaking standard email workflows.
The Supabase Node.js client causes ESM handling issues that break Vitest testing environments.
Extension version pinning is deprecated, forcing users to accept default versions and ignoring explicit version specifications.
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