Where To Host My BackEnd

I am planning to develop a feature-rich website that will have similar functions as social media applications. This will include database management, user authentication, and other relevant features. However, I would like to minimize costs as much as possible until the website scales up. To achieve this, I plan to use Netlify for front-end hosting. My concern is with the choice of the backend. While I am comfortable with Firebase, I am aware that using it initially may be cost-effective, but it may not be sustainable as the application grows, especially due to its weird charging model per read. Given that the website will be read-heavy, this could result in unreasonable costs. I recently discovered Supbase and Appwrite, which are alternatives to Firebase. I am curious to know your opinion about these platforms. Supbase seems promising but I need to learn PostgreSQL to use it effectively. On the other hand, Appwrite's cloud service is still in beta, so I am considering the self-hosting option. I was wondering if you know a way to host Appwrite for free until my application grows. Please share with me ways to host my backend for free until it grows and becomes profitable.
13 Replies
Nicolas
Nicolas9mo ago
There is no free server, you could rent a VPS on DigitalOcean and host anything you'd want there. This is the cheapest you'll get
M7MAD_JO
M7MAD_JO9mo ago
so the only free backend service is Firebase and if my website grows they will suck my soul.
Nicolas
Nicolas9mo ago
Indeed, it's free until it's not anymore And good luck migrating out of it
M7MAD_JO
M7MAD_JO9mo ago
Yes this is my main problem with firebase
West side ⁉
West side ⁉9mo ago
you could start for as cheap as 2.5 bucks with those VPSes you'd (hopefully) make a dollar before you saturate your $2.5 VPS
cje
cje9mo ago
you will need to learn Postgres or some other kind of serious database if you want to grow an application without spending a fortune. there's no way around this.
M7MAD_JO
M7MAD_JO9mo ago
Let's say I have learned PostgreSQL What are the options I will have other than Supabase
cje
cje9mo ago
theres dozens of providers that do hosted/serverless postgres, or you can host it yourself
M7MAD_JO
M7MAD_JO9mo ago
Could you name some of those providers.
cje
cje9mo ago
amazon rds, azure, gcp, neon, vercel postgres, etc
M7MAD_JO
M7MAD_JO9mo ago
Thanks a lot
Nicolas
Nicolas9mo ago
Or just run a Postrgres container, you don't need a cloud provider for everything
Lopen
Lopen8mo ago
Depending on you definition of backend Seems you are referring to only database as backend What does your backend need What's framework/library was it built on