Supabase alternative and Neon alternative: when Aiven for PostgreSQL fits

TL;DR: People searching for a Supabase alternative or a Neon alternative usually want one of three things: lower cost, more control, or a plain database. Aiven for PostgreSQL fits the second and third and is a poor fit if you depend on Supabase's backend features or Neon's branching. All product facts are [TO VERIFY].

First, why are you leaving?

The right alternative depends on the reason.

Be honest with yourself about the last two rows. If the main reason you chose a platform was a feature, an alternative has to replace that feature.

Supabase alternative

What you would replace:

• Authentication: bring your own provider.
• File storage: use object storage.
• Generated APIs: write your own, or use a tool such as PostgREST yourself. [TO VERIFY]
• Realtime: use PostgreSQL LISTEN/NOTIFY or Kafka.

What you keep: PostgreSQL, SQL, and most application code that uses a standard driver. For a direct comparison see Aiven vs Supabase.

Neon alternative

What you would give up: copy-on-write branching per pull request, and scale-to-zero. [TO VERIFY] What you would gain: plan-based service, clouds and regions of your choice, and neighbouring services. Direct comparison: Aiven vs Neon.

A migration path

flowchart LR
  S["Source: Supabase or Neon"] -->|"pg_dump"| F["Dump file"]
  F -->|"pg_restore"| T["Aiven for PostgreSQL"]
  S -->|"logical replication, optional"| T
  T --> V["Verify rows and extensions"]
  V --> C["Cut over connection string"]

Write the rollback first: keep the source database running and read-only until you have verified the target and your application has run on it for a defined period.

Create the target:

avn service create app-pg \
  --service-type pg \
  --cloud do-nyc \
  --plan <plan>
avn service wait app-pg

Check extensions on the source before you move anything:

select extname, extversion from pg_extension order by 1;

Dump and restore, with credentials in environment variables:

pg_dump --no-owner --no-privileges --format=custom \
  "$SOURCE_DATABASE_URL" -f app.dump

pg_restore --no-owner --no-privileges \
  --dbname "$TARGET_DATABASE_URL" app.dump

The target URL should use sslmode=verify-full with the CA file from the Aiven Console:

export TARGET_DATABASE_URL="postgres://<user>:<password>@<host>:<port>/defaultdb?sslmode=verify-full&sslrootcert=./ca.pem"

Verify counts before cutting over:

select 'users' as table_name, count(*) from users
union all
select 'orders', count(*) from orders;

Run the same query on both sides and compare. Then change DATABASE_URL in your secret manager, redeploy, and watch error rates. If you plan to run the app on Aiven too, see Aiven Runtime agent docs.

Things that commonly break

• Roles and row-level security policies that refer to platform-specific roles. [TO VERIFY]
• Extensions that are not available on the target.
• Connection limits and pooling settings. Check what the plan allows. [TO VERIFY]
• Hard-coded hostnames in application config or CI.

Decision guide

Choose to stay on Supabase if you use its auth, storage and APIs heavily.

Choose to stay on Neon if branching and scale-to-zero shape your workflow.

Choose Aiven if you want just PostgreSQL as a managed service, need specific clouds or regions, or expect to add Kafka, ClickHouse or OpenSearch beside it.

Verification note

Dated 2026-11-09. AI-generated and unreviewed. Aiven has had no alternatives pages until now, so treat this one as a first draft. All competitor features, extension support, limits and migration tooling need re-verification, and competitor facts in particular may have changed.