Appwrite vs PocketBase
Open-source BaaS for building full-stack apps
vs. Open-source backend in a single Go binary
Pricing tiers
Appwrite
Self-Hosted
Run Appwrite on your own infrastructure. MIT licensed — no usage limits.
$0 base (usage-based)
Cloud Free
Managed cloud. Hard caps: 1 team member, 1 database per project.
Free
Cloud Pro
From $15/member/month. 2 TB bandwidth, 150 GB storage, 200k MAU, 3.5M executions, unlimited databases + team members.
$15/mo
Cloud Scale
$599/month flat for the org. Higher included usage + advanced security. Deprecated in some regions — check.
$599/mo
Enterprise
Custom pricing. SOC 2, HIPAA (on request), dedicated infra, SLAs.
Custom
PocketBase
Self-Hosted
MIT-licensed single binary. Run on any VPS / Docker / bare metal. No usage caps — only limited by your server.
$0 base (usage-based)
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on Appwrite vs self-hosted on PocketBase.
| Metric | Appwrite | PocketBase |
|---|---|---|
| bandwidth gb month | 5 GB/month | — |
| databases per project | 1 databases | — |
| function duration s | 30 seconds | — |
| function executions | 750000 exec/month | — |
| mau | 75000 users/month | — |
| storage gb | 2 GB | — |
| team members | 1 members | — |
Features
Appwrite · 13 features
- Account (Auth) — User authentication: email/password, magic URLs, phone OTP, anonymous, 30+ OAuth…
- Avatars — Generated avatars, country flags, credit-card icons, QR codes, favicons.
- Databases — NoSQL collections with attribute types, indexes, permissions per document/collec…
- Events System — Unified event bus: subscribe in Functions, Webhooks, Realtime using event string…
- Functions — Serverless functions in 13+ runtimes (Node, Python, Go, Ruby, PHP, Dart, Deno, S…
- Messaging — Multi-channel messaging: Push (FCM/APNs), SMS (Twilio/Vonage/Msg91), Email (Mail…
- Migrations — Import from Firebase, Supabase, NHost, or another Appwrite project.
- Permissions (ACLs) — Per-document / per-collection ACLs: Role.user(), Role.team(), Role.any(), Role.g…
- Realtime — WebSocket subscriptions to events: database changes, auth, storage, function exe…
- Sites — Deploy static and SSR frameworks (Next, Nuxt, SvelteKit, Astro, Remix) direct fr…
- Storage — File buckets with access control, auto-transforms (image preview), antivirus, en…
- Teams — Group users with shared access + roles. Used for row-level permissions on resour…
- Webhooks — HTTP callbacks on any Appwrite event. Signed with x-appwrite-webhook-signature.
PocketBase · 12 features
- Access Rules — Record-level access rules (filter expressions) referencing @request and @collect…
- Admin Dashboard — Built-in web UI for schema + data management.
- Auth — Email+password, OAuth2 (Google, GitHub, Facebook, Apple, Discord, Microsoft, etc…
- Backups — Built-in backup/restore with S3 upload option.
- Built-in Mailer — SMTP integration for verification, password reset, magic link emails.
- Collections — Schema-defined record types with fields, validations, and record/admin/auth acce…
- Embedded JS Engine — JavaScript VM (goja) lets you write hooks in JS without recompiling.
- Extend as Go Library — Embed PocketBase in a larger Go app, add custom routes and events.
- File Storage — Local filesystem or S3-compatible storage with access rules.
- Hooks — Server-side Go or JavaScript hooks that run on CRUD events (OnRecordBeforeCreate…
- Migrations — JS/Go migration scripts applied on startup.
- Realtime Subscriptions — SSE-based subscriptions to collection changes.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Appwrite | PocketBase |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | Appwrite CLI | — |
| SDK | Android SDK (Kotlin), Apple SDK (Swift), Dart Server SDK, Deno SDK, Flutter SDK, Kotlin Server SDK, .NET Server SDK, Node.js Server SDK, PHP Server SDK, Python Server SDK, React Native SDK, Ruby Server SDK, Swift Server SDK, Web SDK (browser) | Go API (extend as library), pocketbase (Dart), pocketbase (JS SDK) |
| REST | REST API | REST API |
| GRAPHQL | GraphQL API | — |
| MCP | Appwrite MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Realtime WebSocket | Admin Dashboard, Realtime SSE |
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Outbound links to Appwrite and PocketBase are plain references to their official websites. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.
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