---
title: Supabase vs Heroku Postgres
description: Supabase is an alternative to Heroku Postgres with Enterprise Grade Support available
author: ant_wilson
tags:
  - comparison
date: '2022-05-26'
toc_depth: 3
---

## What is Heroku Postgres?

Heroku is a cloud application platform that offers managed PostgreSQL as a service. They offer 5 levels of Postgres support from the Hobby Tier up to the Shield Tier, each with different levels of features and pricing. Heroku announced that starting November 28, 2022, they will [stop offering free product plans and will shut down free dynos and data services](https://blog.heroku.com/next-chapter). Since the announcement, developers started migrating their projects to Supabase.

## What is Supabase?

Supabase also offers managed Postgres, the main difference is that with each deployment you also get:

- Auto-generated API - [never write an API again](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/api#rest-api-overview)
- Realtime - [subscribe to data changes via websockets](https://supabase.com/docs/reference/dart/subscribe)
- Auth - [users can log in and out of your application](https://supabase.com/auth)
- Functions - [deploy custom logic to the edge](https://supabase.com/edge-functions)
- Storage - [serve large files and folders](https://supabase.com/storage)
- Supavisor - [connection pooling useful for serverless computing](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/connecting-to-postgres#connection-pooler)

## How are they similar?

Heroku Postgres and Supabase both offer:

- [A web UI for managing your instance](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database#table-view)
- SLAs and Enterprise-grade support packages
- Direct SSL connections to Postgres
- Postgres Extensions (see [Supabase Extensions](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/extensions), [Heroku Extensions](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-postgres-extensions-postgis-full-text-search))
- [Backups and PITR](https://supabase.com/blog/continuous-postgresql-backup-walg)
- [Postgres logs](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/platform/logs)
- Encryption-at-rest

## What are the differences?

### Core Features

These are some of the key differences between Heroku Postgres and Supabase in terms of features:

- Supabase is more than just the raw database, it also comes with:
  - [Connection pooling](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/database/connecting-to-postgres#connection-pool) so that you won’t run out of connections in a serverless environment.
  - [Auto-generated APIs](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/api#rest-api-overview) based on your schema, so you can communicate with your database directly from the client.
  - [Realtime API](https://supabase.com/docs/reference/dart/subscribe) is useful for when you want to subscribe to changes to your database over websockets.
  - [Auth API](https://supabase.com/auth) can be used to leverage Postgres’s Row Level Security model, and control access to sensitive data on a per user, or per group level.
  - [Functions](https://supabase.com/edge-functions) can be deployed out to the edge directly from the Supabase CLI, which means you can run sensitive business logic or transformations in a serverless fashion.
    - You can also deploy edge functions to Heroku using their [Dynos](https://www.heroku.com/dynos) runtime in conjunction with something like [Fastly](https://www.fastly.com/).
  - [File Storage](https://supabase.com/storage) is useful for when your app needs to store large files and folders that aren’t suitable for storing within Postgres itself.
  - A spreadsheet-like web interface for building your schemas and inspecting data.

### Pricing

The two services price quite differently, the key differences being:

- [Supabase pricing is based around usage](https://supabase.com/pricing), so you only pay for what you use.
- Heroku prices based on a tier model with [37 plans to choose from](https://elements.heroku.com/addons/heroku-postgresql#pricing).

Supabase’s Free Plan also includes a dedicated Postgres instance, and the best bit is you can upgrade to pro later without any interruptions.

### Global Deployments

You may have strict data regulations that you must comply with, so choosing your region can be very important. Here’s how the deployment options stack up:

- Supabase can be deployed to any one of [12 data centers across the globe](https://github.com/supabase/supabase/discussions/4815#discussioncomment-1915129) (Free Plan included).
  - Since Supabase is fully open source - you can also [self host wherever you like](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/hosting/overview).
- You can deploy Heroku Postgres to two data centers (US and Europe) however [6 more data centers](https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/regions) are available on the Enterprise plan.

## How to migrate from Heroku Postgres to Supabase

Migrating is surprisingly simple. You just need to use the standard Postgres `pg_dump` and `psql` tools to export your Heroku database and import to Supabase. We created a handy guide for [migrating from Heroku to Supabase](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/migrations/heroku).