The Best Backend-as-a-Service Platforms in 2026

A backend-as-a-service is a hosted database, auth, file storage, and functions behind one API, so the app does not start with a server you patch. The short list in 2026 is not nine copies of Firebase.

The database and the meter decide it, and a Postgres bill, a per-developer bill, and a peak-requests bill fail in different months.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, evaluated 109 tools in its September 2026 low-code backend ranking.

That is the nearest public category that actually includes Supabase, Xano, Backendless, Convex, and PocketBase. This page is the developer cut of that market, not the enterprise low-code cut.

Prices below were verified on each vendor's pricing page in September 2026.

The Supabase vs Firebase write-up is the head-to-head if those two are the whole shortlist.

You are buying a data store plus sign-in, files, code that must not ship in the client, and usually a generated API, and the purchase is not a language.

Supabase, Nhost, and Xano put Postgres under that API, so a team that already writes SQL can leave with a dump instead of a rewrite.

Firebase's default store is Firestore, which suits a phone client that needs offline sync and is the wrong store when the data is relational.

Convex stores documents and exposes TypeScript functions, so you are buying reactivity rather than portable SQL. Appwrite Cloud's default is TablesDB, while the self-hosted 1.9.6 install defaults to MongoDB, so the cloud project and the Docker box are not the same database.

Hosted and self-hosted are different products even when the logo matches.

Supabase's Docker setup and the CLI are free to run yourself, which is the exit when the pause or the organization bill is the objection. Appwrite ships 1.9.6 as a Docker installer and asks for 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of RAM, so self-hosting has a hardware floor.

Convex offers self-hosting if the team will operate the box to leave the per-developer meter.

PocketBase is the open-source binary, version 0.40.4, with no cloud SKU, so the cost is the machine and the person who patches it.

How we compared: we read nine vendors' own pricing and product pages, in USD, and ranked them for someone shipping an app rather than buying an enterprise low-code suite.

The 109-tool Toolradar category is the sample around that shortlist. This is not a load-test report.

The invoice breaks in two places developers notice late. Free projects pause on Supabase, Appwrite, and Nhost after a week idle, so a demo is asleep when a teammate opens it, fine for a side project and fatal for shared staging.

A five-person Convex team pays the Professional rate five times, while a five-person Supabase org pays the org rate once and then compute per project.

Lock-in is the schema, not the logo: a Supabase project can leave through SQL you already know, so the hosted plan stays a rental.

A Firestore project leaves through an export and a rewrite, which is what you pay when you change stores.

Amplify leaves through Cognito, Lambda, and whatever store you attached, a fair cost when the company already lives in that account and an expensive one when it does not.

If the frontend is still undecided, the serverless platforms guide covers where the UI is deployed, and the Vercel review is the common pair with a hosted Postgres backend.

When you want to drop the wrapper and keep the rows, the Postgres hosting guide is the next page, and GraphQL tools is the page when Hasura is the actual question. Stack changes like these show up in the Devshot brief.

Four hosted products cluster at one entry sticker, and then the meters diverge.

Supabase bills the organization and then compute per project: Micro is $10/mo, and Pro credits cover one of those, so an extra project opens a new line.

Appwrite bills Pro per project and prices a dedicated Micro database on that same compute line, with monthly credits beside it, so each app is its own subscription.

Past Pro's included 2 TB, extra bandwidth is billed per 100 GB, and storage past 150 GB is $2.8 per 100 GB, which is how file traffic leaves the flat subscription.

Firebase and Amplify publish no platform subscription, which keeps a quiet app cheap and gives a busy one no floor.

Blaze adds $0.40 per million function calls after the included 2 million, hosting transfer at $0.15/GB after 360 MB a day, and Realtime Database storage at $5/GB after 1 GB.

Amplify data transfer is $0.15/GB after 15 GB, CDN storage is $0.023/GB after 5 GB, and the published five-developer example is $8.08.

New AWS accounts can apply up to $200 in Free Tier credits, which delays that meter until the credits are gone.

Convex Professional is per developer, not per org, and the Business floor is $2,500/mo, so headcount moves the bill before traffic does.

Nhost Team and Supabase Team are each $599/mo when you need the compliance line. Xano Pro is $224/mo on annual billing, with a 99.99% SLA and 10 seats, the plan you reach when Essential runs out of seats.

Backendless Scale Variable adds daily tiers up to $230 for 7,001 to 10,000 requests per minute, so a spike bills that day rather than at renewal.

PocketBase has nothing to put on an invoice until you rent the machine, which is a VPS question, not a BaaS price.

Overage is where the entry plan stops being the bill. Supabase meters disk, egress, monthly active users, branch hours, and point-in-time recovery as separate lines.

Nhost's point-in-time recovery starts at $100 for 7 days, the same add-on shape as Supabase.

Appwrite bills extra executions per million past the Pro allowance, so a busy function can outrun the subscription. The rates are in the table, verified on the vendor pricing pages in September 2026.