Managed Postgres Beats Self-Hosted on Value Despite Hetzner's Lower Raw Price

A developer and infrastructure consultant documented their database hosting research in July 2026, comparing providers including Neon, Supabase, Hetzner, Prisma, Scaleway, and OVH for a 0.5 GB Postgres database. Initial concerns around DDoS exposure, storage limits, and vendor lock-in were dismissed after closer analysis, as the database remains privately accessible regardless of provider and migrating away requires only a dump, restore, and connection string update. Egress pricing emerged as the most significant differentiator, with Hetzner offering 20 TB per month versus Supabase Pro's 250 GB, though Prisma's query-based billing model can prove costly for read-heavy workloads like blogs. Despite Hetzner being cheaper at every tested size, the author ultimately chose a managed Postgres solution, factoring in operational overhead and the value of provider-handled patching, backups, and on-call support. The piece concludes that raw price comparisons can mislead without accounting for workload patterns and the hidden cost of self-managed infrastructure.