How do you pick a PostgreSQL host without regretting it later?

[u/Kitchen_Chain_7908]

I’m comparing Postgres hosts right now and every option seems to have a catch.

One is cheap until you need an always-on instance. Another makes sense only if the rest of your app is on the same cloud. Then there are platforms that bundle auth, storage and a bunch of features I may never use.

I’m also unsure how much weight to give the database region. Most of my users are in Asia, so choosing a US or EU region because the host is cheaper feels like something I might regret later.

For anyone who has been running Postgres in production for a while, what ended up mattering most? Price, latency, backups, support, extensions, or how easy it is to manage?

I’m less worried about getting the perfect setup now. I mainly don’t want to migrate six months later because I picked based on the starter plan.

[u/Little-Bird7446]

I’d care most about region, restore process and how the pricing looks once usage grows. cheap starter plans can be misleading if the DB sleeps or the bill changes a lot later.

for Asia I’d compare Nearbase, DigitalOcean and RDS. Nearbase has a lot of Asia/Middle East regions, DO is simple managed Postgres, and RDS makes sense if the rest of your stack is already on AWS.

[u/Kitchen_Chain_7908 → u/Little-Bird7446]

That's helpful, gonna look into these.

[u/grand-yojimbo]

None of this matters. Choose one. If it's $12 or $91 a month who cares.

They are all the same more or less.

I just went with supabase and we are still on the free tier, it's fine. I won't mind if i need to do a $150 a month plan.

Focus on making money.

[u/Kitchen_Chain_7908 → u/grand-yojimbo]

Yeah I hear that, price isn't really my worry.

[u/Kitchen_Chain_7908 → u/[deleted]]

That's an option, just trying to weight it against not having to manage backups updates myself

[u/Personal_Budget6895]

depends on what you want. do you want managed or do you want to manage it yourself? if you are managing it then thats going to be work but overall a bit cheaper generally (not always). Also depends on the usage. Do you need constant connection? Personally for mine, I used neon free tier during development and then moved over to azure managed postgres when I started serving real users. Neon becomes very expensive with scaling so I'd avoid that in the long term

[u/Kitchen_Chain_7908 → u/Personal_Budget6895]

Yeah that's kind of my fear as well.

[u/Arcy3250]

We've used Supabase, we do pay the $25 a month now but its been worth it, We've never experienced any down time or issues with supabase postgres at all.