Self-Hosting and Hosting Model

Whether and how each backend-as-a-service platform can be run outside its vendor's own cloud.

Supabase

Fully open source and self-hostable via Docker Compose or Kubernetes, in addition to Supabase’s own managed cloud offering — the same stack runs either way.

Firebase

Fully proprietary and only available as a managed Google Cloud service; there is no official way to self-host Firebase’s own runtime.

Appwrite

Fully open source and designed to be self-hosted via Docker, with an official managed Appwrite Cloud offering as an alternative for teams that don’t want to run it themselves.

Convex

Primarily offered as a managed cloud service; a self-hosted option exists but the primary, most polished experience is Convex’s own hosted platform.

PocketBase

Distributed as a single open-source binary meant to be self-hosted anywhere — on a VPS, a Raspberry Pi, or any server that can run a Go executable — with no official managed cloud offering from the core project.

Nhost

Open source and self-hostable (it’s built from Postgres, Hasura, and its own services), alongside an official managed Nhost Cloud platform.

AWS Amplify

Not self-hostable in the usual sense — it provisions and manages real AWS resources (Cognito, AppSync, DynamoDB, Lambda) directly in your own AWS account, so it’s tied to AWS rather than portable to other infrastructure.

Hasura

Open source at its core and commonly self-hosted as a container in front of your own Postgres database, with Hasura Cloud available as a managed alternative.