Supabase vs CockroachDB for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

Supabase Overview

Supabase is the open-source Firebase alternative built on PostgreSQL. It bundles a Postgres database with authentication, file storage, real-time subscriptions, edge functions, and auto-generated REST APIs into a single platform. For solo developers, it replaces an entire backend layer.

The free tier makes Supabase the default starting point for most projects. 500MB database, 50,000 monthly auth users, 1GB file storage. That's enough to validate any idea without opening your wallet. I've shipped MVPs on the free tier and only upgraded when real revenue came in.

What makes Supabase powerful for solo developers is the combination of services. You don't just get a database. You get auth that works immediately, file storage that scales, real-time updates through WebSocket subscriptions, and an API you didn't have to build. The time savings are enormous.

CockroachDB Overview

CockroachDB is a distributed SQL database that speaks PostgreSQL's wire protocol. It automatically shards data across multiple nodes, provides strong consistency across regions, and survives node failures without downtime. It's built for applications that need global distribution and unbreakable reliability.

The Serverless free tier gives you 10 GiB of storage and 50 million request units per month. That's usable for experimentation. But CockroachDB's real value proposition, multi-region distribution and automatic failover, only kicks in on the Dedicated plan at $295/month. The free tier is a single-region deployment that doesn't showcase what makes CockroachDB special.

CockroachDB is PostgreSQL-compatible, which means most Postgres tools and ORMs work with it. But compatibility isn't identical. Some PostgreSQL features don't work in CockroachDB, and the distributed nature means query planning behaves differently. You're not running Postgres. You're running something that looks like Postgres.

Key Differences

Target audience. Supabase is built for application developers who want to ship fast. CockroachDB is built for infrastructure engineers who need distributed, globally consistent databases. These are fundamentally different products for different problems. Solo developers are firmly in Supabase's target audience.

Scope. Supabase gives you a database, auth, storage, real-time, and edge functions. CockroachDB gives you a database. Everything else, you build or buy separately. For a solo developer, assembling auth, storage, and API layers around CockroachDB means more work and more services to manage.

Complexity. CockroachDB introduces distributed systems concepts that most applications don't need. Consistency models, replication topologies, partition strategies, and multi-region configurations. Understanding these is necessary to use CockroachDB effectively. Supabase requires understanding PostgreSQL and the Supabase API. The complexity gap is significant.

Latency. CockroachDB's distributed nature means writes involve coordination between nodes, which adds latency compared to a single-node PostgreSQL. Supabase runs standard PostgreSQL in one region with minimal write latency. For applications that don't need multi-region distribution, Supabase's single-node Postgres is faster for writes.

Cost. Supabase Free handles most side projects. Supabase Pro at $25/month covers growing applications. CockroachDB's meaningful tier (Dedicated) starts at $295/month. That's a massive gap. For a solo developer watching every dollar, the price difference matters.

Scaling model. CockroachDB scales horizontally by adding nodes. Supabase scales vertically by upgrading your Postgres instance (or using read replicas on higher tiers). For the foreseeable future of a solo developer's project, Supabase's scaling model is sufficient. CockroachDB's horizontal scaling solves problems at a scale most solo projects won't reach.

When to Choose Supabase

• You want a complete backend without writing backend code
• You need auth, storage, and real-time alongside your database
• You're building a project where fast iteration matters more than global distribution
• You want a generous free tier to start without cost
• You prefer simplicity over distributed systems capabilities

When to Choose CockroachDB

• Your application genuinely needs multi-region, globally consistent data
• You're building something with strict compliance requirements for data locality
• Surviving regional outages without downtime is a hard requirement
• You have the budget for the Dedicated tier ($295+/month)
• You need automatic horizontal scaling for unpredictable write loads

The Verdict

Supabase wins for solo developers. The 10/10 vs 4/10 rating gap is the widest in this comparison, and it's justified.

CockroachDB is an impressive piece of engineering. Global consistency, automatic sharding, zero-downtime failover. These are genuinely hard problems that CockroachDB solves well. But they're problems that solo developers almost never face. Building a side project or early-stage SaaS doesn't require a database that survives regional data center outages.

Supabase gives you everything you need to build, launch, and scale a product as a solo developer. The database, the auth, the storage, the real-time layer. CockroachDB gives you a database that's overbuilt for your needs at a price point that doesn't make sense until you're far beyond the solo developer stage.

My recommendation: Supabase, without hesitation. If your application grows to the point where you genuinely need multi-region distribution and automatic sharding, you'll have the team and budget to migrate. But starting with CockroachDB as a solo developer is like buying a semi truck to run errands. It works, but it's the wrong tool for the job.