Technology · head to head
etcd vs Supabase
etcd
Technology
A distributed key-value store using Raft consensus, built for cluster coordination rather than application data.
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Supabase has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: etcd it is sized for coordination data, not application data: the default backend quota is 2 GB and 8 GB is the documented recommended maximum, and exceeding it puts the cluster into a NOSPACE alarm where it accepts no writes until an operator compacts, defragments and clears the alarm by hand.; Supabase free tier projects auto-pause after 1 week of inactivity
- They diverge on capability: etcd covers Raft consensus, Supabase covers PostgreSQL database.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which etcd and Supabase actually diverge.
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Technology).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in etcd
- Raft consensus
- Linearizable reads
- Transactions
- Leases
- Watches
- MVCC revision history
- Role-based access control
- Snapshot backup and restore
Only in Supabase
- PostgreSQL database
- Auto-generated APIs
- Authentication & authorization
- Real-time subscriptions
- Storage
- Edge functions
- Vector embeddings
- Database migrations
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
etcd
- Storing Kubernetes cluster state, which is what the overwhelming majority of etcd deployments are doingnot Supabase
- Leader election and distributed locking in a home-grown scheduler or control plane, using leases and transactionsnot Supabase
- Service discovery and dynamic configuration where readers need to be notified of changes rather than poll for themnot Supabase
- Coordinating failover in a clustered database, as Patroni does for PostgreSQLnot Supabase
Supabase
- Web application backends using Postgres plus auto-generated REST/GraphQL APIsnot etcd
- Mobile app backends via Flutter/Swift/Kotlin client librariesnot etcd
- AI applications using vector/embeddings storagenot etcd
- Authentication with 20+ social providers plus email/passwordnot etcd
- File and media storage (S3-compatible with CDN) and realtime sync over WebSocketsnot etcd
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
etcd
- It is sized for coordination data, not application data: the default backend quota is 2 GB and 8 GB is the documented recommended maximum, and exceeding it puts the cluster into a NOSPACE alarm where it accepts no writes until an operator compacts, defragments and clears the alarm by hand.
- Every write is replicated and fsynced before acknowledgement, so cluster performance is bounded by the slowest disk in it; a member on network-attached storage with high fsync latency causes leader elections and cluster-wide latency spikes that look like network problems and are not.
- Adding members increases availability but reduces write throughput, because each write must reach a larger quorum; you run three or five members for fault tolerance, and increasing capacity means faster hardware rather than more nodes.
- There is no sharding and no multi-tenancy, so isolating workloads means running separate clusters, each with its own quorum, certificates, backup schedule and upgrade path, and that operational multiplication is often unexpected.
- Running it yourself is a real job: periodic compaction and defragmentation, snapshot backups you have actually rehearsed restoring, and rotation of both peer and client TLS certificates, none of which happens automatically outside a managed Kubernetes service.
- Losing quorum is not self-healing; recovering a cluster that has lost a majority means restoring from a snapshot and accepting that everything written since that snapshot is gone, which makes backup frequency a data-loss budget decision rather than a routine setting.
Supabase
- Free tier projects auto-pause after 1 week of inactivity
- Free tier hard caps: 500 MB database, 1 GB file storage, 5 GB egress/month, 50,000 monthly active users, max 2 active free projects per organization
- Pro plan charges usage overages beyond included quotas, e.g. $0.00325 per MAU above 100,000 and $0.125/GB disk above 8 GB
- SOC2/ISO 27001 certification and HIPAA (add-on) compliance require the $599/month Team plan; not available on the $25/month Pro plan
Pricing, plan by plan
etcd
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the etcd review.
Supabase
Free- FreeFree
- 50,000 MAU
- 500MB database
- 5GB egress
- Pro$25/month
- 100,000 MAU
- 8GB disk
- 250GB egress
- Team$599/month
- SOC2 and ISO 27001
- HIPAA add-on
- 28-day log / 14-day backup retention
- Enterprise$undefined/month
- Custom limits
- Dedicated support manager
- 24/7/365 support
Which should you pick?
Choose Supabase if
- You need postgresql database.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want auto-generated apis.
Questions people ask
- Is etcd or Supabase better?
- Neither clearly leads. etcd starts at On request and Supabase at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, etcd or Supabase?
- Supabase has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for etcd and Free for Supabase.
- Does etcd or Supabase run on more platforms?
- etcd runs on Web. Supabase runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Supabase for free?
- Yes. Supabase has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. etcd starts at On request.
- What is etcd best used for?
- etcd is most often used for storing kubernetes cluster state, which is what the overwhelming majority of etcd deployments are doing, leader election and distributed locking in a home-grown scheduler or control plane, using leases and transactions, service discovery and dynamic configuration where readers need to be notified of changes rather than poll for them, coordinating failover in a clustered database, as patroni does for postgresql. Of those, storing kubernetes cluster state, which is what the overwhelming majority of etcd deployments are doing and leader election and distributed locking in a home-grown scheduler or control plane, using leases and transactions are not what Supabase is typically brought in for.
- What can etcd do that Supabase cannot?
- etcd covers Raft consensus, Linearizable reads, Transactions, Leases. Supabase covers PostgreSQL database, Auto-generated APIs, Authentication & authorization, Real-time subscriptions.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
etcd: Can I use etcd as an application database?
No. It is designed for metadata and coordination, with a recommended maximum store size of around 8 GB, no sharding and a write path deliberately optimised for durability rather than throughput. Application data belongs in a database built for it.
Supabase: How much does Supabase cost?
Supabase offers a free tier and three paid plans. Pro starts at $25 per month, Team at $599 per month, and Enterprise requires a custom quote. All pricing is in USD charged monthly.
Sourceetcd: How many members should a cluster have?
Three for most cases, five where you need to survive two simultaneous failures. Always an odd number, because an even-sized cluster gains no additional fault tolerance while making quorum harder to reach.
Supabase: What are Supabase's usage overage fees?
Pro plan users pay $0.00325 per monthly active user over the 100,000 included, and $0.125 per GB for database storage exceeding 8 GB per project. Compute instances cost $10 to $3,730+ per month.
Sourceetcd: What happens when the store fills up?
The cluster raises a NOSPACE alarm and stops accepting writes, becoming effectively read-only. Recovery requires compacting old revisions, defragmenting each member and then explicitly disarming the alarm, all done by an operator.
etcd: Why is my etcd cluster slow or unstable?
Almost always disk latency. Because every write is fsynced before acknowledgement, slow or shared storage causes heartbeat timeouts, leader elections and cascading latency. Local SSDs with low fsync latency are effectively a requirement.
etcd: How does it compare with Consul or ZooKeeper?
All three provide consensus-backed coordination. etcd has the simplest data model and the Kubernetes ecosystem behind it; Consul bundles service discovery, health checking and a service mesh; ZooKeeper is older, JVM-based and still common under Kafka and Hadoop-era systems.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- etcd vs Linear
- etcd vs Asana
- etcd vs ClickUp
- etcd vs Figma
- etcd vs Istio
- etcd vs MongoDB
- etcd vs Finxact
- etcd vs Sentry
- etcd vs Trino
- etcd vs Jenkins
- etcd vs Apache Hadoop
- etcd vs Height
- etcd vs Miro
- etcd vs Personetics
- etcd vs Plane
- etcd vs Postman
- etcd vs Raycast
- etcd vs RescueTime
- etcd vs Postgres
- etcd vs Redis
- etcd vs Excalidraw
- etcd vs Notion
- etcd vs PostHog
- etcd vs GitHub
- etcd vs Honeycomb
- etcd vs Lovable
- etcd vs Lucidchart
- etcd vs GitHub Desktop
- Supabase vs Linear
- Supabase vs Asana
- Supabase vs ClickUp
- Supabase vs Figma
- Supabase vs Istio
- Supabase vs MongoDB
- Supabase vs Finxact
- Supabase vs Sentry
- Supabase vs Trino
- Supabase vs Jenkins
- Supabase vs Apache Hadoop
- Supabase vs Height
- Supabase vs Miro
- Supabase vs Personetics
- Supabase vs Plane
- Supabase vs Postman
- Supabase vs Raycast
- Supabase vs RescueTime
- Supabase vs Postgres
- Supabase vs Redis
- Supabase vs Excalidraw
- Supabase vs Notion
- Supabase vs PostHog
- Supabase vs GitHub
- Supabase vs Honeycomb
- Supabase vs Lovable
- Supabase vs Lucidchart
- Supabase vs GitHub Desktop