Databases — small scale stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Managed PostgreSQL Hosting (Primary OLTP)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS db.t3.micro $0.017/hr ~$12.50/mo + gp3 $0.115/GB-mo storage, $0.095/GB-mo backup, $0.021/hr snapshot. Neon Free: 0.5GB storage, 100 CU-hrs/mo, 1 branch, 100hr compute. Neon Pro $19/mo: 10GB incl, $0.45/GB over, $0.12/CU-hr over. Aurora $0.12/ACU-hr ~$87.6/ACU/mo min 0.5 ACU $43.8/mo + $0.10/GB-mo, $0.021/GB-mo backup. Free Tier: Neon 0.5GB forever, RDS 750hr t2/t3 12mo legacy.
Serverless Branching Postgres (Neon-style)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeon Free: 0.5GB, 1 project, 10 branches, 100 CU-hrs, 3GB data transfer. Launch $19/mo: 10GB, 10 projects, 1000 CU-hrs incl, $0.45/GB over, $0.14/CU-hr, $0.20 per million rows read over. Scale $69/mo: 50GB, 5000 CU-hrs, $0.35/GB over. Autosuspend 5min free.
Postgres BaaS Infrastructure (Supabase-style)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free: 500MB DB, 1GB file storage, 50k MAU, 2GB BW, 500k Edge Function invocations. Pro $25/mo: 8GB DB incl, $0.125/GB over, $0.021/GB file storage, $0.09/GB BW over, 7-day PITR. $0.015/100k auth overages. Compute $10 per 1M Edge Function GB-s.
MySQL-Compatible Serverless / Vitess (PlanetScale-style)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsPlanetScale Free (Hobby): 5GB storage, 1B row reads/mo, 10M row writes/mo, 1 branch. Scaler Pro $29/mo: 10GB incl, $1.50/GB over, 100GB BW incl $0.12/GB over, $1.50 per 100M row reads over. Enterprise $199/mo: 50GB, SOC2. TiDB Free 5GB, $0.15/GB over, $0.10/M RCU.
Managed MySQL / Aurora MySQL Compatible
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS MySQL db.t3.micro $0.017/hr ~$12.5/mo, storage $0.115/GB-mo. DO MySQL $15/mo 1GB RAM 10GB storage, $0.15/GB over. Aurora MySQL $0.12/ACU-hr (~$87.6/mo/ACU) 0.5-128 ACU + $0.10/GB-mo + $0.021/GB-mo backup. Free Tier RDS 750hr 12mo.
Managed NoSQL Document DB (MongoDB Atlas)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsM0 Free: 512MB storage, shared RAM, 3 nodes replica, 500 conn max. M10 $57/mo: 10GB storage incl, 2GB RAM, $0.30/GB-mo storage over, $0.60/M reads over. M30 $0.54/hr ~$388/mo: 40GB incl, $0.25/GB over, backups $0.14/GB-mo. Data transfer $0.12/GB over 10GB.
Managed Key-Value Cache (Redis)
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsRedis Cloud Free: 30MB, 30 conns, 200 ops/sec. Essentials $5/mo: 250MB $0.20/GB-hour over, $0.40/100k commands over. Pro 1GB $70/mo: $0.35/GB over, 99.99% SLA, VPC. Upstash Free 10k cmds/day, Pro Pay-as-you-go $0.20/100k cmds.
Serverless Redis / Edge Cache (Upstash-style)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsUpstash Free: 10k commands/day, 256MB max DB, 20 req/sec, 1GB BW/mo. PayGo $0.20/100k commands, $0.20/GB storage-mo, $0.15/GB BW. Provisioned $10/mo 1GB + 100k cmds/day incl. Dragonfly Free 1GB, $8/mo 5GB. Eviction + TLS included.
Managed Wide-Column / Key-Value (DynamoDB)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: 25GB storage forever, 25 WCU + 25 RCU (or 2.5M reads/1M writes on-demand). On-demand: $1.25 per M WCU, $0.25 per M RCU, storage $0.25/GB-mo, $0.20/GB backup, PITR $0.20/GB-mo + $0.20/GB incremental. Provisioned $0.00065/WCU-hr $0.00013/RCU-hr. DAX $0.24/hr t3.small.
Graph Database Managed (Neo4j Aura)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsAura Free: 200k nodes + 400k rels, 1GB storage, 1 DB, community. Pro $65/mo: 1M nodes, 2M rels, 4GB RAM, 16GB storage incl, $0.05/1000 nodes over, $0.35/GB over, $0.15/GB BW. Aura Enterprise $0.34/hr ~$250/mo per 8GB, VPC peering. Free tier forever.
Managed Graph DB AWS-Native (Neptune)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsNeptune db.r5.large $0.348/hr ~$253/mo, db.r6g.large $0.308/hr ~$224/mo. Serverless min 1 NCU $0.095/hr ~$69/mo, max 128 NCU, storage $0.10/GB-mo, I/O $0.20/M, backup $0.021/GB-mo. Neptune Analytics $0.55/hr per 2 NCU. No perpetual free, only 90-day trial credit.
Time-Series DB Managed (InfluxDB Cloud)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: 30GB ingest/month, 300MB storage, 30 day retention, 3k queries/mo. PayGo: $0.002/MB ingested ($2/GB), $0.002/MB queried, $0.01/GB-hr storage ($0.24/GB-day). Dedicated $0.24/hr ~$175/mo per 8GB node + $0.15/GB-mo storage, $0.01 per M query units over. Edge $199/mo.
Time-Series Postgres Extension (TimescaleDB)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: 500MB storage, 75 compute hours, 1 DB, 7-day backups. Pro $25/mo: 2 vCPU 8GB RAM, 100GB storage incl $0.125/GB over, $0.09/GB BW over, $0.20/1000 compute hours over incl 2500. Compression 90% saving counted. High availability +50% cost, fork $0.30/hr.
Serverless Time-Series (Timestream)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsTimestream LiveAnalytics: writes $0.50/M records $0.036/GB-mo magnetic, query $0.01/GB scanned. Free: 100GB writes + 50GB scanned first month. Timestream for InfluxDB db.r6g.large $0.40/hr ~$292/mo, db.m6g.large $0.24/hr ~$175/mo, storage $0.10/GB-mo, backup $0.021/GB-mo. Single AZ -20%.
Distributed SQL (CockroachDB)
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: 10GB storage, 50M RUs/mo, 10M RUs = ~$3.50, 1 cluster. Standard $50/mo base + $0.50/GB-mo storage over 10GB + $0.25/M RUs over incl 50M, $0.15/GB transfer. Dedicated $0.60/hr per 4vCPU ~$432/mo + $0.30/GB-mo. Multi-region +50%. Backup $0.10/GB-mo.
Global Distributed RDBMS (Spanner)
Runs in multiple regions for speed and resilience. Enterprise-grade reliability and the hardest to retrofit.Pricing & free-tier limitsSpanner: $0.90/node-hr ~$657/mo per node (1000 PU), $0.30/GB-mo storage, $0.01/GB backup, $0.60/M reads $2.00/M writes, $0.20/GB egress. Emulator free self-host. Autoscaler min 100 PU = $0.09/hr $65.7/mo + $0.30/GB-mo. Free trial 90d 1 node 10GB.
Managed Search / Secondary Index (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch)
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsOpenSearch t3.small $0.036/hr ~$26/mo, storage $0.135/GB-mo, Serverless 2 OCU min $0.24/hr ~$175/mo + $0.10/GB-mo. Elastic Cloud 2GB $95/mo incl 60GB storage $0.25/GB over $0.18/GB transfer. Typesense Free 500MB, $29/mo 2GB. Free tier: OpenSearch 750hr 6mo.
Managed Columnar / Analytical DB (ClickHouse)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFree: 30GB storage, 300 compute credits/mo (100 credits = $5), 1 service, 30d retention. PayGo: $0.12/GB-mo storage, $0.045/credit compute (1 credit 1 vCPU-hr), min $0.20/hr per service $146/mo equiv. Pro $300/mo base 24GB RAM 180GB storage $0.10/GB over, $0.12/GB backup.
Database Backup & PITR Storage
Persistent storage for your app’s data — users, products, orders. The single most important architectural decision for most projects.Pricing & free-tier limitsRDS snapshot $0.095/GB-mo, backup storage free = DB size, PITR $0.095/GB-mo. S3 Standard $0.023/GB-mo, Glacier Deep $0.00099/GB-mo. Atlas Continuous backup $0.14/GB-mo + $0.20/M oplog. Neon PITR 7d Pro $5/mo extra per branch $0.10/GB-mo history. Cross-region $0.02/GB transfer.
How this small scale databases checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a small scale databases build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.