nself vs Supabase

Supabase is excellent at managed simplicity and a polished developer dashboard. nself is better when you need full data ownership, plugin extensibility, and a single $49/yr price across everything.

Feature matrix

See the [full comparison table](/compare) for a side-by-side view of all 24 features across nself, Supabase, Nhost, Firebase, and Appwrite.

Where Supabase is better

Zero infrastructure management. Supabase handles Postgres upgrades, backups, failover, and SSL. You never SSH into a server. For teams without ops capacity, this removes real operational burden. Source: [Supabase docs](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/platform).

Faster cold start for prototypes. Sign up, create a project, run your first query in under 2 minutes. nself needs a VPS provisioned first, which adds setup time even with the one-line installer. Source: [Supabase quickstart](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/getting-started).

Polished web dashboard (Studio). Supabase Studio lets you edit rows, run SQL, manage auth users, and configure storage from a browser. nself's admin runs locally at localhost:3021 and is CLI-first. Source: [Supabase Studio](https://supabase.com/dashboard).

Larger community and ecosystem. More tutorials, more Stack Overflow answers, more third-party integrations. Official SDKs for Next.js, Flutter, React Native, Swift, Kotlin. nself's ecosystem is growing but smaller. Source: [Supabase GitHub](https://github.com/supabase/supabase).

Where nself is better

Predictable cost at any scale. Supabase Pro starts at $25/mo and grows with usage (storage, bandwidth, MAU overages). A production nself stack on a $5-10/mo VPS has no per-request charges, no overage bills, no surprises. At 100K MAU, Supabase can cost $75-150/mo vs nself's $10-20/mo VPS. Source: [Supabase pricing](https://supabase.com/pricing), [nself pricing](https://nself.org/pricing).

Full data sovereignty. Your Postgres instance runs on hardware you control. No vendor has access to your data, no terms-of-service change can lock you out, and you can run air-gapped without internet. Supabase Cloud stores data on AWS in regions they choose. Source: [Supabase privacy](https://supabase.com/privacy).

87 plugins vs extensions. nself's plugin system adds AI assistants, media processing, chat, billing, monitoring, and more with `nself plugin install`. Supabase has Edge Functions and Postgres extensions but no comparable plugin marketplace. Source: [nself plugins](https://docs.nself.org/plugins).

Built-in multi-tenancy and white-label. nself supports multiple tenants from one stack using table prefixes and Hasura role isolation, with custom domain and branding support. Supabase requires manually writing RLS policies per tenant with no white-label features. Source: [nself multi-tenancy](https://docs.nself.org/guides/multi-tenancy).

Side-by-side pricing

*Prices from public pricing pages, verified April 2026.*

| Scale | nself | Supabase |

|-------|-------|----------|

| **Startup (10K MAU)** | $5/mo (VPS) + $0 CLI | $25/mo (Pro plan) |

| **Growth (100K MAU)** | $10-20/mo (larger VPS) | $75-150/mo (Pro + overages) |

| **Scale (1M MAU)** | $50-100/mo (dedicated) | $500-2000/mo (Enterprise) |

nself costs are VPS hosting only. No per-request fees, no bandwidth charges, no MAU limits. Supabase pricing includes compute, storage, bandwidth, and MAU-based auth charges that grow with usage.

Choose nself if...

1. You need predictable monthly costs that do not scale with usage

2. Data sovereignty or air-gapped deployment is a requirement

3. You want a plugin ecosystem for AI, chat, media, or billing features

4. You need multi-tenant architecture with white-label support

5. You prefer CLI-first workflows and full Postgres access without abstractions

Choose Supabase if...

1. You want zero infrastructure management and do not want to maintain a server

2. Your team needs a polished web dashboard for non-technical stakeholders

3. You are building a prototype and want the fastest possible cold start

4. You need the largest possible community, tutorials, and third-party SDK support

5. SOC 2 Type II compliance from day one matters more than cost

Migration guide

Moving from Supabase to nself. This covers database export, auth user migration, and storage transfer.

### Step 1: Export your Supabase database

# Get your Supabase connection string from Settings > Database
# Replace the host with your project's database host
pg_dump \
  --host db.YOUR-PROJECT-REF.supabase.co \
  --port 5432 \
  --username postgres \
  --format custom \
  --no-owner \
  --no-acl \
  --file supabase_dump.pgdump \
  postgres

### Step 2: Install nself and start your stack

curl -fsSL https://install.nself.org | sh
nself init my-project
cd my-project
nself start

### Step 3: Restore the database

# Restore into nself's Postgres
nself db restore supabase_dump.pgdump

# Verify tables exist
nself db psql -c "\dt"

### Step 4: Migrate auth users

Supabase uses GoTrue for auth. nself uses nHost Auth. The user table schema differs, so you need to remap fields.

# Export Supabase auth users via the Management API
curl -s "https://YOUR-PROJECT-REF.supabase.co/auth/v1/admin/users" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY" \
  -H "apikey: YOUR_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY" \
  > supabase_users.json

# Convert to nself auth format and import
# Use the migration script (see scripts/migrations/supabase-to-nself/)
node scripts/migrations/supabase-to-nself/convert-auth-users.mjs \
  supabase_users.json \
  nself_users.json

# Import into nself auth
nself auth import nself_users.json

### Step 5: Transfer storage files

# List and download Supabase storage buckets
# Using the Supabase CLI
supabase storage ls --project-ref YOUR-PROJECT-REF

# Download all files from a bucket
mkdir -p storage_export
supabase storage cp -r "ss:///bucket-name" ./storage_export/ \
  --project-ref YOUR-PROJECT-REF

# Upload to nself MinIO storage
nself storage upload ./storage_export/ /bucket-name/

### Step 6: Update Hasura metadata

# Open the Hasura console to track your imported tables
nself hasura console
# Track tables, set up relationships, configure permissions

### Step 7: Update your application code

Replace Supabase client calls with GraphQL queries:

// Before (Supabase)
const { data } = await supabase.from('posts').select('*').eq('user_id', userId)

// After (nself / Hasura GraphQL)
const { data } = await client.query({
  query: gql`
    query GetPosts($userId: uuid!) {
      posts(where: { user_id: { _eq: $userId } }) {
        id
        title
        content
        created_at
      }
    }
  `,
  variables: { userId },
})

FAQ

**Can I use Supabase client libraries with nself?**

Not directly. Supabase clients target PostgREST and GoTrue APIs. nself uses Hasura GraphQL and nHost Auth. You will need to update your API calls to use a GraphQL client like Apollo, urql, or graphql-request.

**Does nself have a web dashboard like Supabase Studio?**

nself has a local admin companion (nself admin start) at localhost:3021. It provides table management, user admin, and service monitoring. It is not a hosted cloud dashboard.

**Is nself harder to operate than Supabase?**

Yes. You are responsible for server maintenance, backups, and updates. nself provides CLI commands for all of these (nself backup, nself update, nself ssl renew), but you run them. If you do not want to manage a server, Supabase's managed offering is a better fit.

**Can I run nself on the same VPS as my app?**

Yes. A CX22 VPS ($4-5/mo, 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM) handles most production workloads. nself's full stack uses about 1GB RAM at idle.

**What about Supabase Edge Functions?**

nself has an optional Functions service that runs on your server. It is not edge-deployed (no global CDN), but it runs closer to your database with zero cold-start latency for server-side code.

**Does nself support Supabase's Realtime feature?**

nself uses Hasura's WebSocket-based subscriptions instead. The API differs but the capability is equivalent: push data changes to connected clients in real time.

**Can I migrate incrementally?**

Yes. You can run both Supabase and nself in parallel during migration. Point new features at nself while keeping existing ones on Supabase, then migrate table by table.

**What about Supabase's free tier?**

Supabase offers a generous free tier for small projects. nself has no free cloud tier since it is self-hosted, but the CLI itself is free and a $5/mo VPS covers most use cases.

**Does nself have Supabase-style Row Level Security?**

nself uses Hasura's permission system instead of Postgres RLS. You define role-based access rules in Hasura metadata. It is more flexible (supports column-level and aggregation permissions) but uses a different configuration approach.

**Is the database migration lossless?**

pg_dump exports everything: tables, indexes, constraints, functions, triggers. The only things that do not transfer are Supabase-specific extensions (like supabase_functions schema) and GoTrue auth data, which requires the separate auth migration step above.

Ready to try nself?

The CLI is MIT-licensed and free. Install it on any Linux server and have a full backend stack running in 5 minutes. If you need the AI assistant, media processing, or chat plugins, membership starts at $0.99/mo.

[Install nself](https://install.nself.org) | [Run the migration script on a test project](/vs/supabase#migration-guide)