Guides # Guides to your product's infrastructure, with one flat bill. What a flat price includes, how to leave a metered service, what runs on one dedicated machine, and how your app and its sign-in run there too. Every number on these pages is the pricing page's, so they stay true as the product changes. ## The bill What a flat price includes, and what a metered one hides. - Vercel + Supabase cost ### [What Vercel + Supabase really costs when your app gets traffic ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/vercel-supabase-cost) Current Vercel and Supabase plan, seat, traffic and overage prices, compared with a flat-price dedicated machine. - Heroku alternative ### [A Heroku alternative when you want one machine and one flat price ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/heroku-alternative) Heroku dynos, Postgres and Key-Value priced side by side with one managed machine for app, database and sign-in, plus where Heroku is better. - Railway alternative ### [A Railway alternative when you want one machine and one number ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/railway-alternative) An honest Railway comparison for small teams: per-second resource billing versus a managed dedicated machine with app, database and auth on one flat bill. - Render alternative ### [A Render alternative when separate services become separate bills ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/render-alternative) Compare Render web services, Postgres and Key Value with one managed dedicated machine, including current entry prices and the architectural tradeoffs. - Managed machine vs VPS cost ### [The VPS costs less. Your time is the second bill ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/lathe-vs-vps-cost) A quotable cost and operations table for a self-managed VPS versus Lathe, with honest assumptions and the cases where DIY is the better choice. - Flat-price managed database ### [A managed database with a flat price you can compute ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/flat-price-database) One dedicated paid machine, one monthly price from $15: storage, 20 TB of traffic, backups, TLS and the console included. Nothing metered. - No egress fees ### [Managed Postgres: traffic included, no metering ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/no-egress-fees) Every paid Lathe instance includes 20 TB of traffic a month at full speed. Pull backups, run exports, move your data out: traffic is included in the flat price. - Never paused, never metered ### [A database that never pauses and never meters ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/never-paused) Paid plans: no idle sleep or usage meters. One dedicated machine that stays on for one price from $15. - A database for side projects ### [A database for side projects, with no surprises ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/database-for-side-projects) One dedicated paid machine for all your small projects at $15 a month: never paused, never metered, storage and 20 TB of traffic included. ## Moving off a metered service Leaving Supabase, Neon or another Postgres provider, and the move itself. - Lathe vs Vercel + Supabase ### [Lathe vs Vercel + Supabase: which stack fits your app? ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/lathe-vs-vercel-supabase) Compare Lathe with Vercel and Supabase on price, integrations and fit. See the one-machine limits and when separate platforms work better. - Vercel + Supabase alternative ### [We wanted a Vercel + Supabase alternative without becoming full-time DevOps ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/vercel-supabase-alternative) A founder-builder's honest guide to the tradeoffs between Vercel + Supabase, DIY self-hosting, and one managed dedicated machine. - Firebase alternative ### [A Firebase alternative when you want SQL and one flat price ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/firebase-alternative) Firebase's usage-based plans versus one machine with Postgres and sign-in at a flat price: what moves, what you give up, and who should stay. - Self-hosted Supabase ### [Self-hosting Supabase in production: what are you signing up to run? ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/self-host-supabase-production) Self-hosted Supabase gives you control, but also backups, upgrades and recovery. Compare that work with a managed app, Postgres and auth machine. - Supabase alternative ### [Supabase alternative: one machine, one flat bill ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/supabase-alternative) Your app, Postgres and sign-in on one dedicated machine, one flat price from $15 a month, no price per user. What changes, what you give up, and the move. - Move off Supabase, keep the client ### [Leave Supabase and keep supabase-js for sign-in ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/supabase-js-compatible) Move the Postgres and the sign-in to a dedicated machine at a flat price without rewriting the front end: supabase-js keeps working against the Auth engine. - PostgreSQL vs Supabase ### [PostgreSQL vs Supabase: what the difference is ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/postgres-vs-supabase) Supabase is a platform built around PostgreSQL. What it adds, what is plain Postgres, and how to run the Postgres part alone from $15 a month. - Neon alternative ### [A Neon alternative that never scales to zero ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/neon-alternative) Neon meters compute and scales to zero. Paid Lathe plans give you a dedicated Postgres machine, always on, from $15 flat. What changes and how to move. - Fly.io Postgres alternative ### [Fly.io Postgres alternative with one flat price ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/fly-postgres-alternative) Fly.io Managed Postgres starts at $38 a month plus storage, with failover. Lathe is one Postgres machine from $15, storage included. The honest trade. - DigitalOcean Postgres alternative ### [DigitalOcean Managed Postgres alternative ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/digitalocean-postgres-alternative) DigitalOcean's smallest managed Postgres node is $15.15 for 1 GiB of memory, storage by the GiB. Lathe prices a whole machine instead. What each includes. - ElephantSQL alternative ### [ElephantSQL alternative: where to run Postgres now ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/elephantsql-alternative) ElephantSQL is discontinued. Lathe runs PostgreSQL 17 on a dedicated machine from $15 a month, flat. How to move, and when it is not the fit. - Moving a Postgres database ### [Move a Postgres database with pg_dump and pg_restore ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/migrate-postgres) Moving a PostgreSQL database between providers in three commands: dump, restore, switch the connection string. What to check, and how to keep downtime short. ## The app and its sign-in Your own containers and your users, on the same machine as the data. - Deploy from your AI agent ### [Give your AI agent a machine, not another dashboard ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/deploy-from-ai-agent) Copy-paste MCP setup for Claude Code, Cursor and ChatGPT, then create a machine, deploy an app and retrieve short-lived connection credentials. - App hosting beside the database ### [Host a container beside its Postgres, flat price ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/host-your-app) Put the image of your app on the dedicated machine that runs its database: deploy from a push, your domain, TLS, nothing metered. From $15 a month. - Sign-in without a price per user ### [Sign-in for your app with no price per user ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/auth-flat-price) Managed sign-in with the users in your own Postgres: email links, OAuth, MFA, sessions, in the flat plan price. Users are never a line on the bill. ## How it runs One dedicated machine, the engines on it, and the alternative of running it yourself. - Redis to Postgres ### [Redis to Postgres: the three patterns that actually get used ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/redis-to-postgres) Cache-aside, queues and data moves between Redis 8 and PostgreSQL 17, with real commands and the decision criteria for one machine or two. - Self-hosted VPS or managed ### [Postgres on a cheap VPS, or the same box run for you ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/vps-vs-managed) A VPS with Postgres on it is the right call until the night it stops answering. What self-hosting costs in hours, what Lathe does instead, and when each fits. - One machine, every engine ### [Postgres, Redis, NATS and S3 storage on one machine ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/one-machine) Any mix of Postgres 17, Redis 8, CouchDB 3, NATS 2 and SeaweedFS 4 on one Lathe instance, each on its own TLS port with its own credentials and memory budget. - pgvector on your own machine ### [pgvector embeddings on a dedicated Postgres machine ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides/pgvector) Embeddings are big and cheap to rebuild. Run pgvector on a dedicated machine with storage and 20 TB of traffic included, from $15 a month. Nothing metered. ## The engines One page per engine: what runs, how to connect, how the app and its sign-in fit, what it costs. - Host your app beside its database ### [Host your app on the same machine as its database ](https://lathe.live/apps) Your container image on the dedicated machine that runs its databases: deployed from a push, served on your domain over TLS, nothing extra. From $15 a month. - Managed sign-in for your app ### [Sign-in on your own Postgres, no price per user ](https://lathe.live/sign-in) Email links and codes, OAuth, MFA and sessions for your app, with the users in your own Postgres on a dedicated machine. Nothing per user. From $15 a month. - Managed PostgreSQL 17 ### [Managed PostgreSQL 17 on a dedicated machine ](https://lathe.live/postgres) Paid PostgreSQL 17 with PgBouncer, TLS, pgvector and restore-tested daily backups on a dedicated machine you do not run. Flat price from $15 a month. - Managed Redis 8 ### [Managed Redis 8 with TLS on a dedicated machine ](https://lathe.live/redis) Redis 8 with TLS, a password, a memory budget you set and a console in the portal, on the same dedicated machine as your database. Nothing metered. - Managed CouchDB 3 ### [Managed CouchDB 3 on a dedicated machine ](https://lathe.live/couchdb) CouchDB 3 over HTTPS with admin credentials, Fauxton, replication and Mango queries on your own dedicated machine. Flat monthly price, nothing metered. - Managed NATS 2 with JetStream ### [Managed NATS 2 with JetStream on a dedicated machine ](https://lathe.live/nats) NATS 2 with JetStream persistent streams, TLS and credentials on the same dedicated machine as your database. Streams managed from the portal. Flat price. - S3-compatible object storage ### [S3-compatible object storage on a dedicated machine ](https://lathe.live/object-storage) Buckets over the S3 API with TLS and keys of your own, on the dedicated machine beside your database. Any S3 SDK, presigned URLs, flat price, nothing metered. Written for a person; the same facts for an AI agent are on [the agents page ](https://lathe.live/agents)and at [/llms.txt ](https://lathe.live/llms.txt). ## Related - [Deploy a Next.js guestbook ](https://docs.lathe.live/guestbook) Deploy one Next.js guestbook with Postgres and Auth through the Lathe portal, REST API or MCP, then verify persistence. - [Your own machine ](https://docs.lathe.live/machine) Learn what Lathe means by a dedicated virtual machine: one customer per VM, with its own kernel, root filesystem and local disk. - [Connect to PostgreSQL ](https://docs.lathe.live/postgres) Connect to Lathe PostgreSQL with TLS, pooling and network allowlists from an app, terminal or database client. [All guides ](https://docs.lathe.live/guides) ## Free at $0; paid plans from $15 a month. Live about 5 minutes on average after creation on Free or checkout on a paid plan. Paid plans: cancel any time. [Start Free - $0 ](https://app.lathe.live/login)