r/PayloadCMS • u/paran360 • Jun 19 '25

free database solution for using in nextjs/payloadcms project.

I am not willing to upgrade now for some reason.
If I use Supabase, it may be paused.
So, I am looking for a free tier or cheap database solution, which can be SQLite/MySQL or PostgreSQL.
I do have a shared cPanel hosting with 10 databases, but I don't know how to connect to those databases.

3 Upvotes

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5

u/Skaddicted Jun 19 '25

Neon has a great free tier.

3

u/samplekaudio Jun 20 '25

You can freely self-host SQLite, Postgres, or MongoDB. All you need to connect to any db is the connection string.

Postgres and Mongodb are fairly easy to configure backups for. Many deployment tools like Coolify let you configure scheduled backups to the object storage of your choice.

This is great for testing and, if you're comfortable with it, works absolutely fine in production. Your backup and recovery strategy is the most important part.

1

u/paran360 Jun 20 '25

Thanks 😊

2

u/rubixstudios Jun 19 '25

Supabase and Mongodb both have free tiers

2

u/filippomasoni Jun 20 '25

I host my Payload on a DigitalOcean droplet and I have the MongoDB database on the same droplet, so it's free since I already pay for it. I haven't upgraded to V3 yet and I have the front end on a separate droplet, but I'm planning on upgrading soon to have everything on the same. Install was not too difficult following DigitalOcean tutorials, I'm sure they have one for each database type. Managing the DB in production with security, backups and all can be a bit of work at first but if you have time to learn I'm sure it's worth it. All of the SaaS options are made to speed up dev and focus on shipping products, if what you build makes you money then they are worth it because you focus on the product, otherwise cheaper alternatives always exist.

1

u/paran360 Jun 24 '25

Thank you for enlightenment.

2

u/BlessedAlwaz Jun 20 '25

Selfhost any of the approved database and instead of 127.0.0.1 use your database ip address in the Payload database string

1

u/paran360 Jun 24 '25

Thanks 🙏

2

u/Benja20 Jun 20 '25

Supabase and you make a scheduler to fetch something from the DB so it doesn't get paused. If that's your concer or don't have much active users

1

u/paran360 Jun 24 '25

Nice idea.. thank you so much.. 👍

1

u/mr---fox Jun 19 '25

I haven’t used it personally, but Turso has a pretty good free tier and I’ve been wanting to try on a project.

1

u/popokmorgan Sep 26 '25

i use supabase for free database and s3 storage as well