When choosing a PostgreSQL database platform, whether for a side project or a production app, you need to look beyond features and assess the total cost of ownership — including compute, storage, backups, and bandwidth.

In this guide, we compare Supabase vs AWS (RDS and Aurora) across free, entry-level, and production tiers. We focus strictly on database-related costs and explain on-demand vs reserved pricing where applicable.

0. Free Plans: What Do You Get for \$0?

Both platforms offer free tiers, but they differ significantly in duration, compute power, and resource isolation.

• Supabase Free is ideal for hobby projects, quick MVPs, or internal tools with light traffic. It requires no setup and stays free forever.
• AWS Free Tier gives you significantly more power and isolation but is limited to the first 12 months after signup.

1. Entry-Level (Low Cost)

When you outgrow the free tier but don’t need production-grade resources, these plans offer low-cost paths. Supabase simplifies everything with a flat rate. AWS offers more control and deeper savings through reserved pricing.

• Supabase Pro is great if you want simple, predictable pricing without dealing with EC2, storage classes, or IOPS tuning.
• RDS On-Demand offers low-cost dedicated compute with more configurability.
• Reserved instances (1yr and 3yr) reduce costs dramatically, but require long-term commitment.

2. Mid-Tier Production (100GB Storage + Moderate Usage)

For established applications with real user traffic and non-trivial data volumes, cost differences and platform flexibility become more significant.

• Supabase (Large) bundles all costs and removes infrastructure complexity — ideal for fast-moving teams.
• RDS Reserved (especially 3-year) cuts monthly bills by over 50%.
• Aurora Reserved costs more, but adds built-in high availability, multi-AZ replication, and better scaling.

3. Heavy Workload (500GB+ Storage, High Throughput)

For mission-critical workloads with large storage, high concurrency, and peak traffic, this tier shows how pricing stacks up across platforms.

• Supabase 2XL is an all-inclusive bundle that scales without requiring DBAs or infra tuning.
• RDS Reserved (3yr) delivers maximum cost-efficiency if your workload is stable.
• Aurora Reserved is ideal for high-volume, multi-region, or high-availability requirements.

Cost Reference for Storage & Compute

• Reserved pricing can reduce compute cost by 30–60%, especially for year-long or 3-year commitments.
• Aurora charges by I/O operations, unless you're on their newer I/O-optimized pricing model.

📝 Explanatory Notes

• t4g.micro (burstable): AWS uses burstable instances like t4g.micro for its Free and entry-level RDS tiers. These provide 2 ARM-based vCPUs with a CPU credit system — ideal for low-to-moderate workloads with occasional spikes.

• gp2 Storage (AWS): gp2 volumes offer 3 IOPS per GB, with a minimum baseline of 100 IOPS at 20GB. They also include burst capacity, giving better performance than basic shared storage.

• Supabase Flat Pricing: Supabase’s pricing includes compute, storage, backups, and bandwidth in a single monthly rate — simplifying cost tracking and reducing surprise bills.

• Backup Costs (AWS): RDS provides free backup storage up to the size of your DB. Additional snapshot storage is charged at:

  • \$0.095/GB for RDS
  • \$0.021/GB for Aurora

• Aurora I/O-Optimized: This newer Aurora pricing tier eliminates per-I/O charges and instead bills a flat rate per GB stored. Ideal for write-heavy or high-throughput workloads with unpredictable I/O.

• IOPS Costs (RDS): For high-performance needs, RDS users may upgrade to io1 or gp3 storage with provisioned IOPS — typically adding \$100+ per month for workloads requiring consistent low-latency throughput.

• Reserved Pricing (AWS): RDS and Aurora support 1-year and 3-year reservations, reducing monthly compute costs by 30–60%. These are billed upfront or monthly and require workload stability.

Conclusion

• Supabase offers simple pricing and easy setup, ideal for fast-moving projects.
• AWS RDS Reserved is best for long-term, cost-optimized workloads with more control.
• Aurora suits high-performance, high-availability needs, but at a higher cost.

Choose based on your need for simplicity vs control, and how stable your usage will be. Supabase works well for early-stage apps; AWS shines for scaled, mature systems.

Need more than a database? Our next post will compare Supabase vs AWS pricing across auth, messaging, and more.