Supabase vs Vercel: which one does your ai app actually need?

the full guide

quick answer: supabase vs vercel isn't really a fight, it's a pint and a packet of crisps. if you have to pick one to build on, it's Supabase: #1 of 5 on our backends board at 9.0/10, because it's where your app's state lives: a dedicated Postgres with auth, file storage, realtime, edge functions and pgvector in one project. Vercel is #2 (8.5/10) and it does a different job: it runs your front end and the serverless ai routes that talk to that database, with a preview per branch. Vercel has no Postgres of its own on its pricing page, and Supabase doesn't host your Next.js app, so most builders use both. as of nov 4, 2026, Supabase installs straight from Vercel's marketplace.

the short version

ranks and scores come straight from our backend board, and nobody pays to move up it.

why Supabase ranks higher

it's the bit you can't fake. a front end can live on any host going. your users, their data, the logins and the embeddings can't. Supabase gives you all of that in one project, so your coding agent writes features instead of wiring up auth for the fourth time this year.

it's still just Postgres. every project gets its own dedicated Postgres instance, so psql, Prisma, Drizzle and the rest all work, and pgvector keeps embeddings in the same tables as your users. more on that in Convex vs Supabase.

the free plan doesn't care if you charge money. as of nov 4, 2026: 500 MB of database, 50,000 monthly active users, 5 GB of egress and 1 GB of file storage. the catch: 2 active projects, and free projects are paused after a week of inactivity.

the bill has a ceiling. Pro is from $25 a month with the first project included and $10 of compute credit, enough to cover one Micro instance. extra projects are from $10 a month each. spend caps are on by default on Pro; switch them off only if you want to pay past the plan's quotas.

the honest bit: it won't host your app. Supabase's pricing lists edge functions (500,000 invocations free, 2 million on Pro) but no app hosting, so the Next.js front end needs a home somewhere else. which is exactly where this pairing comes from.

where Vercel wins

shipping the front end. push to git and Vercel builds it, with a preview deployment by default for every push to a branch that isn't production, and the CDN and HTTPS sorted. it's what our board rates it for: front ends and serverless ai routes, and the nicest way going to ship Next.js.

waiting on a model is cheap. functions run on Fluid compute, and Vercel bills active CPU only while your code is executing (from $0.128 an hour on Pro after the included amount, 4 hours a month on Hobby), so a chat route sat waiting on an LLM isn't paying CPU for the wait.

the ai plumbing is in the box. AI Gateway (bring your own key, fallbacks, load balancing, spend monitoring) is on every plan, and Vercel Sandbox runs code your agent wrote (5 hours of active CPU a month on Hobby, 10 concurrent sandboxes; 10K concurrent on Pro).

it plays nicely with Supabase. the Supabase integration on Vercel's marketplace creates a Supabase project as a Vercel storage resource, lets you pay the invoice through Vercel instead of Supabase, syncs the env vars (POSTGRES_URL, SUPABASE_URL and friends) into your Vercel projects, and sets up redirect URLs for preview branches.

the honest bit: Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use, says Vercel's own pricing faq, so the moment your side project takes money it belongs on Pro at $20 a month per developer seat (with $20 of usage credit). pro usage isn't capped by default either: new teams get a $200 on-demand budget with alerts, and you can opt to pause projects at 100%. set that before you land on the front page of anything.

which should you pick?

• users, logins, files and a database by friday: Supabase
• RAG over your own tables with pgvector: Supabase
• a Next.js app with streaming ai chat routes: Vercel
• marketing site, docs or front end with previews per pull request: Vercel
• a real ai app: both. front end and routes on Vercel, data and auth on Supabase, wired up from the marketplace
• a long-running agent, worker or API that has to stay up: Railway (#3). see Supabase vs Railway and Vercel vs Railway
• serverless Postgres that branches per pull request and scales to zero: Neon (#4). see Neon vs Supabase

the rest of the field

faq

is Supabase better than Vercel?

on our board, Supabase is #1 (9.0/10) and Vercel #2 (8.5/10). but they do different jobs: Supabase is the database, auth and storage; Vercel hosts your front end and functions. most ai apps use one of each.

can i use Supabase with Vercel?

yes, and it's the common setup. Supabase is a native integration on Vercel's marketplace: it creates the Supabase project from Vercel, can put the bill on your Vercel invoice, and syncs the connection env vars into your Vercel projects.

does Vercel have its own database?

not on its pricing page as of nov 4, 2026. Vercel lists blob storage, Vercel drives and global config, but for Postgres you add a provider from the marketplace, Supabase included.

Supabase vs Vercel pricing: which is cheaper?

they bill for different things, so you'll usually pay both. Supabase is free for 2 active projects, then Pro from $25 a month for one project on micro compute with a spend cap on by default. Vercel's Hobby is $0 but non-commercial only, and Pro is $20 a month per developer seat with $20 of usage credit. more in Supabase pricing and Vercel pricing.

which free tier is better for a side project that makes money?

Supabase's. its free plan has project and inactivity limits but no non-commercial rule on the pricing page. Vercel says Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use.

sources

checked 2026-11-04, ~00:45 ET

• Supabase pricing (Free, Pro and Team plans, free limits, 2 active projects, pausing after a week, first project included and extra projects from $10, $10 compute credit and Micro instance, dedicated Postgres per project, spend cap on by default, edge functions invocations): https://supabase.com/pricing
• Vercel pricing (Hobby, Pro and Enterprise, $20 included usage credit, developer seat $20, Hobby non-commercial faq, Fluid compute active CPU, AI Gateway, Vercel Sandbox, blob, $200 default on-demand budget): https://vercel.com/pricing
• Supabase on the Vercel marketplace (native integration, Supabase project as a Vercel storage resource, billing through Vercel, env var sync, preview branch redirect URLs): https://vercel.com/marketplace/supabase
• Vercel environments docs (preview deployments by default on pushes to non-production branches and on pull requests): https://vercel.com/docs/deployments/environments
• ranks, scores, verdicts and plans: numptr data/tools.json (backend, database and deploy board)