Master And Customer Data Management — hobby 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.
Golden Record Storage (Transactional DB)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsSupabase Free: 500MB DB, 1GB storage, 50k MAU | Pro $25/mo 8GB DB, $0.125/GB storage over, $0.00325/hr compute over. Neon Free: 3GB storage, 10 projects, 100hr compute/mo | Launch $19/mo 10GB, $1.50/GB over. RDS db.t4g.micro ~$13/mo, Aurora Serverless v2 $0.12/vCPU-hr + $0.10/GB-mo
MDM Platform / Core Engine
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 limitsPimcore OSS free self-host. CluedIn Free: 50k records, 1M relationship edges. Ataccama Free: 100k records profiling. Reltio: ~$120k/yr base for 2M profiles, $18k/yr per extra 1M. Informatica MDM SaaS $60k/yr min, $0.08/record/yr over. Tamr $80k/yr base.
CDP / Event Ingestion & Collection
Lets external services notify you of events in real time. Core to integrating payments, KYC, and third-party workflows.Pricing & free-tier limitsSegment Free: 1,000 MTU/mo | Team $120/mo 10k MTU included $0.12/MTU over. RudderStack Free: 500k events/mo Cloud | Pro $500/mo 2.5M events $80 per 500k over. mParticle Starter $2,000/mo 10M events.
Data Matching & Deduplication Engine
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 limitsSenzing Community: 500k records free self-hosted | Team $600/mo 5M evals. Splink OSS free (Spark/DuckDB). Tamr Cloud: $3,500/mo base 1M records, $0.002/record matching over. Ringlead $1,200/mo.
API Gateway for MDM CRUD APIs
Controls and protects your APIs — quotas, abuse prevention, and firewalls. Important once you have real traffic or many clients.Pricing & free-tier limitsKong OSS free. AWS API Gateway Free: 1M calls/mo 12mo | then $1.00/Million REST, $0.90/Million HTTP + data. Kong Konnect $250/mo 500k calls. Apigee X $4.50/unit (call-volume based) min $500/mo.
Search & Indexing for Master Data Lookup
Lets users find things fast. A slow or missing search directly costs engagement and conversions.Pricing & free-tier limitsMeilisearch OSS free. Typesense Cloud Free: 100k docs 500MB | $40/mo 1M docs. Elasticsearch Serverless: ~$95/mo 2GB storage+compute. Algolia Free: 10k records 100k ops/mo | Starter $89/mo 100k records 1M ops, $0.60/1k records over.
Caching Layer for Golden Records
Stores frequent results in fast memory so you serve less from the database. Big lever for speed and cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsUpstash Free: 10k commands/day 256MB | Pay-as-you-go $0.20/100k commands. Redis Cloud Free: 30MB | Essentials $5/mo 100MB. ElastiCache Serverless: $0.125/GB-hr + $0.0034/100k ECPUs, ~$30/mo minimal cache.
Background Jobs for Matching & Stewardship Jobs
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 limitsInngest Free: 500k steps/mo, 30-day history | Hobby $20/mo 5M steps $40/M over. QStash Free: 500 msgs/day | Pro $10/mo 30k msgs $1/6k over. SQS Free: 1M msgs/mo | then $0.40/M. Temporal Cloud $25/mo base 5k actions.
Object Storage for Raw Source & Attachments
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsR2 Free: 10GB storage, 10M Class A ops/mo | Paid $0.015/GB-mo storage, $0 egress. B2 Free: 10GB | $6/TB-mo $0.01/GB download. S3 Free Tier 5GB 12mo | $0.023/GB-mo, $0.09/GB egress, Glacier $0.004/GB-mo.
Secrets Management for MDM Connections
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 limitsInfisical Free: 3 projects unlimited seats | Cloud $19/mo/seat Pro. Doppler Free: 50 secrets, 12 projects | Team $8/user/mo. AWS Secrets Manager $0.40/secret/mo + $0.05/10k API calls. Vault Cloud $0.03/hr ~$22/mo cluster.
Backup & Disaster Recovery for Golden Records
Copies of your data so a bug, hack, or outage doesn’t become permanent loss. Cheap insurance every serious project needs.Pricing & free-tier limitsWAL-G OSS free (S3 target cost). Supabase Pro PITR 7-day $25/mo included, 14-day $100/mo addon. AWS BackupFree: 5GB backup free | RDS backup storage $0.095/GB-mo over free tier. SimpleBackups $19/mo 10 jobs.
How this hobby master and customer data management checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a hobby master and customer data management 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.