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Ask HN: What database (and database hosting) to use for small projects?

by reeeeee on 9/25/21, 12:11 PM with 7 comments

I just started on a project that will probably have no more than 100 customers, keeping track of basic accounting tasks. I'm now thinking about which database service I will use. Looking at the prices of AWS databases, it will cost me $30 per month just to host the smallest RDS instance in the region of my choice.

When starting out on smaller projects that are hosted in the cloud, which database and database hosting/provider do you use? What service do you think offers the best price to quality ratio?

  • by FdezRomero on 9/25/21, 7:56 PM

    MongoDB Atlas offers a fully managed M0 instance with 512MB of storage and shared RAM for free. You can choose among AWS, GCP or Azure and the region. I use this or the Firebase Firestore free tier.

  • by verdverm on 9/25/21, 4:19 PM

    I prefer Google Cloud, it is more expensive than Linode or DO, cheaper and easier than AWS.

    You can use a fully managed Postgres for $30, maybe less. They charge based on the VM size.

    Postgres is always a solid choice.

  • by JasonCannon on 9/25/21, 4:52 PM

    SQLite will almost certainly work for your purposes, and you can run it on the same server you already run your web application on.

  • by aaronrobinson on 9/25/21, 12:14 PM

    You can run a Linode or Digital Ocean droplet for $5 a month all in. Then just run the DB yourself.