Supabase OSS is not Supabase Cloud. Self-hosting means taking on far more than a database. You operate authentication, storage, realtime, REST APIs, backups, monitoring, and upgrades. For many teams, that cost in engineering time outweighs the benefits of control. If you want autonomy without the burden, Vela offers a full Postgres Data Platform you run in your own cloud — instant cloning, Git-like branching, and NVMe-class performance included.
Supabase Cloud delivers a seamless developer experience — managed Postgres plus Auth, Realtime, Storage, Edge Functions, and dashboards. The open-source version, while powerful, is not a drop-in equivalent. Running the full stack requires Kubernetes, networking, CI/CD, secrets management, and constant patching across multiple microservices. The effort multiplies with every upgrade.
Open source freedom is valuable, but it shifts operational risk onto your team. Downtime, scaling, and performance tuning become your responsibility. Security reviews, compliance checks, and HA failover drills all land on your backlog.
What looks affordable at first can turn expensive over time. Cloud servers are cheap; engineers are not. A single full-time platform engineer can cost more than a managed database subscription. Add in the overhead of incident response, performance tuning, and version upgrades, and the “free” stack quickly becomes the most expensive option.
Even with strong DevOps, you lose the economies of scale that managed platforms achieve. Supabase Cloud runs standardized clusters and auto-scales usage. Self-hosting means you size and manage capacity yourself — often over-provisioning to stay safe.
Some teams genuinely need self-hosting. Highly regulated industries must keep data within isolated VPCs. Enterprises with predictable workloads can justify the operational cost to gain full customization. Deep integration with extensions, non-standard networking, or custom compute/storage topologies can also make sense for expert platform teams.
If these aren’t your constraints, you’re likely better off with a managed Postgres Data Platform. It delivers the same flexibility with less operational friction.
The open-source Realtime service in Supabase OSS is excellent for small projects, but at scale, it introduces operational noise. Maintaining replication slots, message ordering, and websocket fan-out consumes resources. Enterprises often add Kafka, Redis, or custom gateways to fill the gaps. The result is a patchwork of systems, not a unified database platform.
Managed platforms such as Vela integrate realtime Postgres natively. Durable event channels, replay support, and role-based access control are built in. You get live updates without maintaining a separate broker or replication topology.
Vela was designed as a Postgres BaaS for teams that want control without complexity. You deploy it in your own cloud under a Bring-Your-Own-Cloud (BYOC) model. The Vela control plane automates lifecycle tasks — provisioning, backups, upgrades, and monitoring — while your data stays inside your VPC.
Instant database cloning and branching make experimentation safe. Developers can copy production data into test environments in seconds, run migrations, and merge back once verified. The underlying storage is versioned and high-performance, built on NVMe-class disks for low-latency I/O across OLTP and analytical workloads.
Security is zero-trust by default. Vela never holds persistent IAM access or data visibility into your accounts. Everything runs inside your cloud perimeter, aligning with compliance and data residency requirements.
Supabase is a great starting point for developers exploring the Postgres ecosystem. But as workloads grow, a unified Postgres Data Platform becomes necessary. Vela extends Postgres into a single system for data, storage, and orchestration. It brings the simplicity of a managed service together with the control of self-hosting.
The outcome is faster innovation with less maintenance. Platform and AI teams gain the performance and compliance of self-hosting, with the automation and observability of a modern managed stack.
Self-hosting gives you control. Vela gives you control, performance, and time back. Run Postgres, auth, storage, and realtime as one platform inside your cloud — without rebuilding the stack.
Compare Vela with Supabase Cloud or OSS. Estimate savings and test the platform in your own environment.