Best Databases for Founders
14 tools reviewed honest opinions, no fluff.
Our Picks
The databases tools we recommend most for founders.
Supabase
Postgres + auth + storage + realtime. Firebase for people who want to own their data.
Use when: You want Postgres with batteries included
TypeScript ORM that feels like writing SQL. Lightweight, fast, zero overhead. Prisma got too heavy, Drizzle kept it lean.
All Databases Tools
14 tools reviewed with honest opinions.
Supabase
Postgres + auth + storage + realtime. Firebase for people who want to own their data.
Use when: You want Postgres with batteries included
PlanetScale
MySQL with git-like branching. Schema changes without downtime. Database DevOps, solved.
Neon
Serverless Postgres that scales to zero. Branch your database like code. Free tier is generous.
Turso
SQLite at the edge. Stupidly fast for read-heavy apps. Per-user databases are a game-changer.
Backend-as-a-database. Realtime, type-safe, serverless. Firebase rebuilt by TypeScript nerds.
MongoDB Atlas
The document database in the cloud. Love it or hate it, it's everywhere. JSON all the way down.
Upstash
Serverless Redis and Kafka. Pay per request. Perfect for rate limiting, caching, and queues.
CockroachDB
Distributed SQL that survives anything. For when your data absolutely, positively cannot go down.
Postgres with a spreadsheet UI, full-text search, and branching built in. Very dev-friendly.
Redis
In-memory data store that's fast beyond reason. Caching, sessions, queues, pub/sub - the Swiss army knife of backend infra.
TypeScript ORM that feels like writing SQL. Lightweight, fast, zero overhead. Prisma got too heavy, Drizzle kept it lean.
Prisma
Type-safe database toolkit for Node.js. Schema-first, auto-generated client, migrations. The default ORM for good reason.
Fauna
Serverless document database with built-in auth and GraphQL. Zero ops, scales automatically. Niche but powerful.
Graph-relational database that's actually developer-friendly. EdgeQL is what SQL wishes it was. Niche but brilliant.
Compare Databases Tools
Head-to-head comparisons to help you decide.
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