Best Database Software for Startups and SaaS (2026): A Developer's Guide

Most "best database software" articles are written by content marketers who've never deployed an app. They list 25 databases alphabetically, mention "scalability" sixteen times, and leave you no closer to a decision.

This guide is different. We've built production SaaS applications on multiple database platforms. We migrated MakerKit from Firebase to Supabase when the requests became overwhelming. We've seen what works at scale and what breaks at 3 AM.

The short answer for 2026: If you're building a web-based SaaS or startup, use Supabase. It gives you PostgreSQL with authentication, real-time subscriptions, storage, and edge functions in one platform. For most teams, it's the right choice.

But "most teams" isn't everyone. This guide helps you decide when Supabase fits, when to pick Neon or PlanetScale instead, and when specialized databases like ClickHouse or Timescale make sense.

Pricing and features verified January 2026. Database providers update their offerings frequently, so check official pricing pages for current details.

Quick Recommendation: Best Database for Startups

The best database for a startup building web-based SaaS in 2026 is Supabase. It combines PostgreSQL with built-in authentication, Row Level Security for multi-tenancy, real-time subscriptions, file storage, and edge functions. You get a complete backend without stitching together five services. The free tier is generous enough to validate your idea, and the pricing scales predictably. That's why MakerKit runs on Supabase and why we recommend it to developers building their first SaaS.

• Use Supabase when you're buying into the whole stack (auth, storage, real-time, edge functions). Its value is the integration.
• Use PlanetScale when you want just a database with battle-tested reliability. No extras, just rock-solid infrastructure.
• Use Neon when you want serverless Postgres with excellent branching, generous free tier, and can tolerate occasional reliability hiccups.
• Use Turso when SQLite is the right fit: read-heavy apps, edge computing, mobile sync, or embedded scenarios.

Best Database Software by Category

Here's the landscape before we get into specific providers. Database categories matter because they determine what problems you can solve efficiently.

Relational Databases (SQL)

• PostgreSQL: The default choice for web apps. Powers Supabase, Neon, PlanetScale, Xata, and Timescale. Handles 90% of startup use cases.
• MySQL: Still widely used, especially in PHP ecosystems. Also available on PlanetScale.

Serverless Postgres Platforms

• Supabase: Full backend-as-a-service with Postgres core
• Neon: True serverless with scale-to-zero
• PlanetScale: Postgres and MySQL with Vitess-powered horizontal scaling
• Xata: Postgres with built-in search
• Prisma Postgres: Zero cold starts, edge caching (tightly coupled to Prisma ORM)

Edge/SQLite Databases

• Turso: libSQL (SQLite fork) distributed globally
• Cloudflare D1: SQLite at the edge (Cloudflare ecosystem)

Document Databases (NoSQL)

• MongoDB Atlas: When your data is truly document-shaped
• Firebase Firestore: Google's NoSQL with real-time sync

Specialized Databases

• ClickHouse: Analytics and OLAP at petabyte scale (now also offers managed Postgres with native CDC to ClickHouse)
• Timescale: Time-series data on Postgres
• Pinecone, Weaviate: Dedicated vector databases

What about Redis? Redis is a caching layer, not a primary database. Use it alongside your main database for session storage, rate limiting, and caching hot data.

Best Serverless Postgres Databases

PostgreSQL won the database wars for web applications. Every major serverless database platform now offers Postgres (even PlanetScale added it). The question isn't whether to use Postgres, it's which managed platform fits your needs.

Supabase: The Full-Stack Choice

Supabase is a backend-as-a-service built on PostgreSQL. It's not just a database; it's auth, storage, real-time, and edge functions bundled together.

What you get:

• PostgreSQL with full SQL access
• Authentication with 20+ providers
• Row Level Security for multi-tenant apps
• Real-time subscriptions via Postgres changes
• S3-compatible file storage
• Edge Functions (Deno-based)
• Vector embeddings via pgvector

Best for: Teams who buy into the whole stack. Supabase's value isn't just Postgres. It's auth, storage, real-time, and edge functions integrated together. If you only need a database, you're paying for features you won't use. But if you want the full platform (auth + storage + real-time + edge functions), Supabase saves you from stitching together multiple services.

Production gotcha: Supabase isn't "serverless" in the scale-to-zero sense. Your Postgres instance runs continuously. This is actually good for production (no cold starts on database queries) but means you pay even when idle on paid plans.

Scaling note: Supabase announced Multigres in 2025, bringing Vitess-style horizontal sharding to Postgres. For teams needing YouTube-scale distribution, Supabase is catching up to PlanetScale's scaling story.

Analytics: Supabase recently introduced Analytics Buckets built on Apache Iceberg, letting you offload large datasets from Postgres into queryable analytical storage. Useful for time-travel queries and keeping your transactional database lean.

Free tier: 500MB database, 1GB file storage, 2 projects. Generous enough to build and validate an MVP.

Pricing feedback: The most common complaint we hear from MakerKit customers is the $10/month per-project cost on Pro plans after the two included projects. If you're running multiple environments or multiple apps, that adds up quickly. Neon's scale-to-zero is more cost-effective for dev/staging databases you don't use constantly.

We've run MakerKit on Supabase for years. Our Supabase RLS best practices guide covers the patterns we've refined across 100+ production deployments.

Neon: Serverless with Excellent Dev Workflows

Neon is true serverless Postgres with the best database branching in the business. It separates storage and compute, allowing your database to scale to zero when idle.

What you get:

• PostgreSQL with full compatibility
• Scale-to-zero (pay nothing when idle)
• Database branching (like git for your schema), genuinely excellent
• Instant database cloning for testing
• Autoscaling based on load
• Neon Auth (built on Better Auth, 60k MAU free)

Best for: Development environments, side projects, and teams who want great branching workflows with a generous free tier. If budget matters and you can tolerate occasional reliability hiccups, Neon delivers a lot of value.

Databricks acquisition (May 2025): Databricks acquired Neon, signaling PostgreSQL's importance in modern data infrastructure. Neon remains independently operated, but the acquisition brings resources and AI/analytics integrations.

Production gotcha: Cold starts and reliability. When your database scales to zero, the first connection takes 500ms to 2 seconds. More concerning: Neon experienced multiple outages in 2025, including a 5.5-hour incident in May affecting us-east-1. For production workloads where uptime is critical, consider PlanetScale or Supabase instead.

Free tier: 0.5GB storage, scale-to-zero, branching included. One of the most generous free tiers available. Great for validating ideas without spending money.

Xata: The Search-First Choice

If search is central to your application, Xata eliminates the Postgres + Elasticsearch dance. It pairs PostgreSQL with OpenSearch in a single managed service.

You get Postgres plus:

• Built-in full-text search (typo-tolerant, relevancy-based)
• Database branching for dev/staging environments
• File attachments stored directly on records
• No cold starts (databases stay warm)

Ideal for: Marketplaces, directories, and content platforms where search drives the experience. Skip the complexity of managing two services.

Tradeoff: Smaller ecosystem than Supabase or Neon. You'll find fewer tutorials, Stack Overflow answers, and community plugins.

Pricing: No free tier, but 14-day trial with $100 credit. After that, usage-based pricing starts at $0.012/hour + storage ($0.30/GB). Scale-to-zero means you only pay when active.

Supabase vs Neon: Head-to-Head

Our take: Both now offer auth, but Supabase's ecosystem is more mature (storage, real-time, edge functions). If you want serverless with excellent branching and a generous free tier, Neon is great for development and side projects. For production databases where uptime is critical, consider Supabase or PlanetScale instead.

Best Database Software for Small Business

Small businesses and indie developers need databases that work without a dedicated DBA. Managed services matter more than raw performance.

PlanetScale: The Pure Database Choice

If you just need a database (no auth, no storage, no functions), PlanetScale is the most reliable option. They spent five years proving their Vitess-based MySQL platform with companies like Cursor, Intercom, and Block. In September 2025, they launched PlanetScale for Postgres, bringing the same battle-tested infrastructure to the Postgres ecosystem.

What you get:

• MySQL or Postgres (both production-ready)
• Horizontal sharding via Vitess (MySQL) or Neki (Postgres, coming soon)
• Non-blocking schema changes
• Database branching
• Always-on (no scale-to-zero, no cold starts)
• Query insights and schema recommendations

Best for: Teams who want just a database with proven reliability. No extras, no bloat. Just rock-solid infrastructure. Pair it with Clerk or Better Auth for authentication.

Pricing: No free tier, but the $5/month Scaler plan includes 5GB storage for single-node databases. Metal tier ($50+) adds NVMe-backed performance for production workloads. Development branches are $5/month each.

Analytics: PlanetScale supports the pg_duckdb extension for offloading analytics queries to MotherDuck, a cloud data warehouse built on DuckDB. This keeps heavy analytical workloads from impacting your production database.

When to choose PlanetScale: You want production-grade reliability without paying for features you won't use. If uptime matters more than free tier savings, PlanetScale's track record beats Neon's.

Turso: SQLite at the Edge

Turso makes sense when SQLite is the right database for your application. It takes SQLite global using libSQL (an open-source SQLite fork written in Rust), distributing your database to edge locations worldwide.

When SQLite is the right choice:

• Read-heavy workloads (90%+ reads) where Postgres is overkill
• Mobile apps that need offline-first with sync
• Edge computing where you want data close to users globally
• Embedded scenarios like local-first apps or AI agents
• Simple applications where you don't need Postgres complexity
• Per-user databases (each user gets their own SQLite file)

What Turso adds to SQLite:

• Global distribution across edge locations
• Embedded replicas that sync to user devices
• Vector search built-in for AI features
• Sub-10ms reads from nearby edge nodes
• Live materialized views for real-time data (experimental)

The catch: SQLite's single-writer model limits write throughput. Turso added concurrent writes in 2025, but for write-heavy or complex relational workloads, PostgreSQL still wins.

Free tier: 5GB storage, 100 databases, 500 million row reads/month. Room to experiment with edge architecture.

Firebase/Firestore: The Legacy Option

Firebase isn't dead, but it's no longer the default recommendation for web apps. It remains strong for mobile-first applications.

Still valid for:

• React Native/Flutter mobile apps
• Real-time sync (Firebase's specialty)
• Rapid prototyping with Firebase Studio
• Teams already invested in Google Cloud

Why we moved away: Google's unclear strategy, limited JavaScript ecosystem support, and the broader shift toward PostgreSQL. We cover this extensively in our Firebase vs Supabase comparison.

Best Time Series Database

Time-series data, measurements indexed by time, requires specialized handling. Generic databases struggle with high write volumes and time-based queries.

TimescaleDB

Timescale extends PostgreSQL with time-series optimizations. It's not a separate database; it's a Postgres extension.

What you get:

• Hypertables (auto-partitioned by time)
• Continuous aggregates (pre-computed rollups)
• Compression (10x storage reduction)
• Full PostgreSQL compatibility

Best for: IoT sensor data, application metrics, financial tick data, or any use case with high-frequency time-stamped events.

Why Timescale over InfluxDB: You keep PostgreSQL's ecosystem. Your team doesn't need to learn a new query language. You can JOIN time-series data with your regular application tables.

When you need it: If you're storing sensor readings, event logs, or metrics at scale (millions of rows per day), Timescale will outperform vanilla Postgres by 10-100x on time-based queries.

Best Vector Database

Vector databases store embeddings for semantic search, RAG applications, and AI features. You have two paths: dedicated vector databases or extensions on your existing Postgres.

pgvector (Supabase/Neon)

pgvector adds vector similarity search to PostgreSQL. Both Supabase and Neon support it.

Best for: Teams already using Postgres who want to add AI features without another database. Store embeddings alongside your relational data, query them with SQL.

-- Find similar documents using pgvector
SELECT id, title, 1 - (embedding <=> query_embedding) as similarity
FROM documents
ORDER BY embedding <=> query_embedding
LIMIT 10;

Tradeoff: pgvector is good enough for most applications (millions of vectors). Dedicated vector databases scale further but add operational complexity.

Dedicated Vector Databases (Pinecone, Weaviate)

For applications where vector search is the primary workload, dedicated databases offer better performance at billion-vector scale.

Pinecone: Managed, serverless, easiest to start. Higher cost at scale. Weaviate: Open-source, self-hostable, more control.

When to use dedicated: Your vector count exceeds 10 million, or vector search latency is critical to user experience.

Best NoSQL Database

NoSQL databases fit specific use cases. The answer to "should I use NoSQL?" is usually "probably not," but there are valid scenarios.

MongoDB Atlas

MongoDB stores JSON documents. It's flexible for unstructured data but loses PostgreSQL's referential integrity and complex query capabilities.

Valid use cases:

• Truly schema-less data (user-generated content varies wildly)
• Prototyping when schema is unknown
• Teams with MongoDB expertise

Usually wrong for: Applications that will eventually need JOINs, foreign keys, or complex reporting. Many MongoDB projects eventually migrate to Postgres when the schema stabilizes.

MongoDB vs PostgreSQL: If you're unsure, start with Postgres. You can store JSON in Postgres (JSONB columns) while keeping relational capabilities. See MongoDB vs PostgreSQL for detailed comparison.

How to Choose the Right Database for Your Startup

Use this decision framework:

1. Do you need a complete backend or just a database?

• Complete backend (auth + storage + functions) → Supabase
• Just database (reliability focus) → PlanetScale
• Just database (budget focus) → Neon
• Edge/SQLite → Turso

2. What's your existing stack?

• MySQL codebase → PlanetScale (MySQL)
• PostgreSQL or new project → Supabase, Neon, or PlanetScale (Postgres)
• Edge-first/mobile → Turso

3. Do you need specialized capabilities?

• Time-series data → Timescale
• Heavy analytics → ClickHouse
• Search-centric → Xata
• Vector/AI → pgvector (Supabase) or Pinecone

4. What's your budget?

• Pre-revenue/validation → Supabase or Neon (free tiers)
• Growth stage → Evaluate based on usage patterns
• Enterprise → Self-hosted options available

5. Do you have compliance requirements?

• HIPAA → Supabase (certified)
• SOC2 → Supabase, Neon (both certified)
• Data residency → Self-hosted Supabase

If you're still unsure: Start with Supabase. It handles the most common needs, has excellent documentation, and you can always migrate the database layer later (it's just Postgres).

Best Free Database Software

Free tiers matter for startups. You want to validate ideas without surprise bills during prototyping.

Free tier limits verified January 2026. Providers update these frequently.

Our recommendation: Supabase's free tier gives you everything needed to build and launch an MVP. The 500MB limit sounds small but handles thousands of users for most SaaS applications.

Is Prisma a Database? (Common Confusion)

Prisma is primarily known as an ORM (Object-Relational Mapper), but they now offer a database too.

Prisma ORM generates TypeScript types from your database schema and provides a query builder. It connects to any Postgres database (Supabase, Neon, PlanetScale, etc.).

Prisma Postgres (launched February 2025) is their serverless database offering built on unikernels and Cloudflare infrastructure. Key features:

• Zero cold starts
• Global edge caching for queries
• Built-in connection pooling
• Usage-based pricing (per operation, not compute hours)
• Free tier: 100k monthly operations, 500MB storage, 5 databases

Should you use Prisma Postgres? It's new and tightly coupled to Prisma ORM (direct TCP connections currently require Prisma ORM). If you're already using Prisma ORM and want a simple serverless database, it's worth evaluating. For most teams, Supabase or Neon offer more mature ecosystems.

Prisma ORM vs Drizzle: We've compared the ORMs in our Drizzle vs Prisma guide. Short version: Drizzle is lighter and stays closer to SQL; Prisma has a larger ecosystem and better tooling for complex schemas.

Best Database for SaaS Applications

SaaS applications have specific requirements: multi-tenancy, access control, scalability, and compliance.

Multi-Tenancy Matters

Most SaaS apps serve multiple customers (tenants) from a single database. This requires strict access control so Customer A never sees Customer B's data.

Two approaches:

1. Shared database, Row Level Security (RLS): All tenants in one database, policies enforce isolation
2. Database-per-tenant: Each customer gets a separate database

For most startups, shared database with RLS is the right choice. It's simpler to operate, cheaper to run, and PostgreSQL's RLS is battle-tested.

Why Supabase Excels for SaaS

Supabase was designed for this use case:

• RLS built-in: Define policies that enforce tenant isolation at the database level
• Auth integration: User identity flows directly into RLS policies
• Realtime per-tenant: Broadcast updates to specific tenants only

-- Example: Users can only see their team's data
CREATE POLICY "team_isolation" ON documents
  FOR ALL
  USING (team_id IN (
    SELECT team_id FROM team_members
    WHERE user_id = auth.uid()
  ));

This pattern ensures that even if your application code has bugs, the database rejects unauthorized access.

Learn the patterns in our Supabase RLS best practices guide.

Production Considerations

Cold Start Comparison

Cold starts affect user experience when your database scales to zero.

For user-facing production workloads: Always-on databases (Supabase, Xata) or pre-warmed compute (Neon with minimum scale) prevent latency spikes.

Cold start times vary by region and load. Numbers based on community benchmarks and provider documentation as of January 2026.

Pricing at Scale

Database costs scale with storage, compute, and bandwidth. Rough comparisons at startup scale (10GB database, moderate traffic):

Hidden costs: Bandwidth egress, backup retention, and support tiers. Read pricing pages carefully.

Compliance

For healthcare applications requiring HIPAA, Supabase is currently the only serverless option with compliance certification.

Quick Recommendation

Best database software for startups is Supabase when:

• You're buying into the whole stack (auth, storage, real-time, edge functions)
• You want one platform instead of stitching five services together
• Multi-tenancy with RLS matters
• You value the integrated developer experience over raw database flexibility

Skip Supabase if:

• You only need a database, not the full stack (use PlanetScale for reliability, Neon for free tier)
• You need MySQL compatibility (use PlanetScale)
• SQLite fits your use case better (read-heavy, edge, mobile sync), so use Turso
• You're building mobile-first in the Google ecosystem (consider Firebase)

Our pick: Supabase, if you buy into the whole stack. We've run MakerKit on it for years because the combination of Postgres, built-in auth, RLS, and real-time covers what most SaaS applications need. If you only need a database, PlanetScale offers rock-solid reliability. If budget is tight, Neon's free tier and branching are hard to beat for development.

Next Steps

If you're building a SaaS application, start with Supabase and learn the patterns that make it production-ready:

• Security first: Read our Supabase RLS best practices for multi-tenant patterns
• Secrets management: Learn to use Supabase Vault for API keys and credentials
• ORM selection: Compare your options with Drizzle vs Prisma
• Full guide: See our complete guide to building a SaaS quickly for the full picture

Which MakerKit Kit Should You Use?

MakerKit offers production-ready Next.js starter kits for different database choices:

• Supabase Kit includes Supabase Auth, Row Level Security patterns, real-time subscriptions, and storage integration out of the box.
• Drizzle/Prisma Kit uses Drizzle ORM or Prisma ORM with Better Auth (framework-agnostic authentication) and works with any Postgres-compatible database: Neon, PlanetScale, Turso, or self-hosted Postgres - and can be adapted to any other database supported by Drizzle or Prisma.

Both kits include multi-tenancy, billing (Stripe or Polar), team management, and admin panels. The difference is the auth and database layer.

Last updated: January 2026