Compare
Selfhost.dev vs AWS RDS
RDS Hidden Costs RevealedSelfhost.dev and AWS RDS both run managed PostgreSQL on the same AWS Graviton instances. Selfhost.dev runs it for about 67% less in ap-south-1 (Mumbai) and about 52% less in us-east-1, with connection pooling, monitoring, PITR and BYOC in your own AWS account included instead of billed as separate add-ons. See the matched-config pricing, the full feature comparison and free white-glove migration below.
TL;DR
The short
version.
Selfhost.dev is about 67% cheaper than RDS in ap-south-1 (Mumbai) and about 52% cheaper in us-east-1, on a matched small 2 vCPU / 4 GB Graviton config. The gap narrows as instances grow: about 40% on the large config priced below. Same hardware, fraction of the markup.
See the measured benchmarks โ Get your own numbers: free cost audit โConnection pooling, monitoring and alerts included free. RDS charges extra: RDS Proxy $21-44/mo, CloudWatch $3/instance/mo. Pooling, backups, PITR and alerts are handled for you, so nobody on your team has to be the DBA.
Manage your database from Claude, Cursor or VS Code with 189 MCP tools. RDS has no equivalent.
Pricing
Real numbers,
three configs.
This RDS pricing breakdown uses monthly rates from us-east-1 (N. Virginia). RDS prices include RDS Proxy and CloudWatch for an apples-to-apples comparison. Selfhost.dev is prepaid and pay-as-you-go: top up credits, pay only for what you run and resources pause at a $0 balance, so there is no postpaid monthly invoice and no tier or subscription fee.
Leaving RDS because the bill is unpredictable? On the same Graviton instances, Selfhost.dev gives you about 67% lower prepaid pricing in ap-south-1 (about 52% in us-east-1) that pauses at $0 and you can run it in your own AWS account. Most teams start on the small config and scale up.
Deploy managed Postgres โFeatures
Side by side
comparison.
| Feature | Selfhost.dev | AWS RDS |
|---|---|---|
| Connection pooling | Included (PgBouncer) | RDS Proxy $21-44/mo extra |
| Monitoring | Built-in, up to 6 months of history | CloudWatch $3/mo + Datadog ~$70/mo |
| Alerts | Included (email + Slack) | CloudWatch Alarms $0.10/alarm + SNS |
| PITR | Included (pay WAL storage) | Included (but 2x compute for Multi-AZ) |
| AI management | 189 MCP tools | None |
| BYOC | Your AWS | N/A (you're already on AWS) |
| Regions | Broad AWS coverage | All AWS regions (native) |
| Compliance | Not yet certified | SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI, FedRAMP |
| Ecosystem | PostgreSQL focused | Aurora, IAM auth, deep AWS |
| Multi-AZ | Multi-AZ standby | 2x compute cost |
| Autoscaling | Included (scheduled + reactive) | Manual or Aurora only |
| PG config access | Full tuning | Limited parameter groups |
| Encryption | At rest (AWS KMS) + in transit (TLS) | At rest (KMS) + in transit |
| CPU credit charges | None (Graviton at flat rate) | $0.075/vCPU-hr on T4g bursts |
Deep dive
Why Selfhost.dev is
cheaper.
AWS RDS is expensive, it charges a steep markup over raw EC2. The RDS true cost becomes clear when you compare it to Selfhost.dev, which runs PostgreSQL on the same Graviton instances (t4g, r7g) at transparent pay-as-you-go pricing. It starts at the floor: Selfhost.dev begins at $5/mo (t4g.nano, 2 vCPU / 512 MB) and even the RAM-matched t4g.micro (1 GB) is only ~$8/mo, while RDS's smallest instance, a db.t2.micro (1 vCPU, 1 GB), runs well above that once its default proxy and per-feature charges are added. Either entry gives you pooling, monitoring and alerts included.
Hidden costs
RDS Hidden Costs:
What RDS Doesn't Show Upfront
These RDS billing surprises add up fast. Here's what AWS doesn't include in the headline price.
Required for connection pooling. Charged separately per vCPU of your database instance.
CloudWatch Enhanced Monitoring at 1-second granularity. Basic monitoring is 60-second intervals.
Free tier limited to 7 days retention. Detailed analysis beyond that is charged per-vCPU.
T4g instances in Unlimited mode incur $0.075/vCPU-hr for sustained CPU usage above the baseline.
Multi-AZ deployments double your compute bill. A $156/mo instance becomes $312/mo with failover.
Automated backups beyond 100% of provisioned DB storage size are charged per GB per month and snapshot exports to S3 are billed separately too.
Charges like T4g CPU credits and Multi-AZ scaling make an RDS bill swing with load, exactly what we call Bill Variance. For a line-by-line look at every RDS charge, read our full AWS RDS cost breakdown. See your own number on our Bill Variance calculator.
Limitations
What RDS
can't do.
Looking for an AWS RDS alternative? Here's what RDS can't match.
AWS Labs ships open-source RDS Management, Aurora PostgreSQL and Aurora MySQL MCP servers, so you wire up and switch between several to cover one estate. Ours is one first-party server, 189 tools, databases and app deploys together.
Need a separate RDS Proxy service at $21-44/mo. Selfhost.dev includes PgBouncer on every database.
Need CloudWatch + Datadog + PagerDuty for what Selfhost.dev provides in one dashboard with email and Slack alerts built in.
You're locked into RDS. Can't bring your own EC2 instances. Selfhost.dev lets you connect your AWS account and run databases on your own infrastructure, so you keep the exit path: walk away any time and the database is still yours, running in your account.
Parameter groups don't expose everything. Selfhost.dev gives you full access to tune shared_buffers, work_mem, max_connections and every other PostgreSQL setting.
Migration
Switching from RDS?
We migrate you, free.
There is no migration tool to fight with, because you get people instead. A Selfhost.dev engineer plans and runs the move with you, end to end, at no extra cost.
Instance sizes, Postgres version, extensions: the free cost audit form is enough. You get the exact monthly number and a migration plan before anything moves.
RDS speaks native logical replication, so we sync your data live and cut over with near-zero downtime; small databases move even more simply with pg_dump and restore. You keep full access the whole time.
We verify a restore on the new instance first and you flip the connection string only when you are satisfied. A good moment for the move: before your Postgres version ages into RDS Extended Support surcharges.
Free on every plan size. If the numbers do not work for you, you keep the breakdown.
Based on this page: ยท
On now or still deciding?
What's the bill you're looking at?
Roughly how much a month, all in?
Matched to RDS, we bill 3.0x less in ap-south-1 (Mumbai) and 2.1x less in us-east-1.
2 vCPU / 4 GB with 20 GB: $24.54/mo in Mumbai, $35.27/mo in us-east-1, against an estimated $73.75/mo on RDS.
See a real RDS bill, before and after →Neon meters compute hours and sleeps. We bill one fixed hourly rate and never sleep.
{price} Same number in a quiet month and a launch month.
Price your size →Two ways off the Supabase bill and you can keep the Supabase stack.
Self-host Supabase on a project server from about $0.02/hr or move just the database to a dedicated Postgres. {price}
How self-hosted Supabase works here →An enterprise client is moving production ClickHouse to us at up to 60% less.
Worked example: off ClickHouse Cloud Scale to always-on managed ClickHouse, $891.86 to $364.03 a month, 59%.
See the ClickHouse bill, before and after →A PaaS bills per service. A project server is one bill for everything on it.
Worked example: a studio consolidated client hosting onto project servers, $390.00 to $82.66 a month, 78%.
See that bill, before and after →A managed database for as low as $5 a month. Dedicated Postgres or MySQL on AWS, with restore, pooling and Multi-AZ failover when you want it.
{price} Postgres and MySQL price the same.
Price your size →A managed database for as low as $5 a month. Dedicated Postgres or MySQL on AWS, with restore, pooling and Multi-AZ failover when you want it.
{price}
Price your size →A managed database for as low as $5 a month. Dedicated Postgres or MySQL on AWS, with restore, pooling and Multi-AZ failover when you want it.
{price} Pay-as-you-go credits, top up from $5, no plan tiers.
Price your size →Most setups map onto two shapes: dedicated databases on AWS and a project server for everything else.
{price} Project servers from about $0.02/hr.
Price your size →Under $200 a month, the calculator beats a human reply. Price it there first.
What's it for?
Where do your users mostly sit?
Dedicated managed Postgres or MySQL, with point-in-time restore, pooling and Multi-AZ failover when you want it.
{region} If you need scale-to-zero or instant branching, Neon fits better than we do.
What managed Postgres includes →Managed ClickHouse for events at volume or TimescaleDB on managed Postgres for time-series next to your app data.
Worked example: off ClickHouse Cloud Scale, $891.86 to $364.03 a month, 59%. {region}
See the ClickHouse bill, before and after →pgvector on managed Postgres: one database instead of a second vendor.
{region} TimescaleDB is one click away on the same instance if you also have time-series.
When a dedicated vector DB is worth it →A project server from about $0.02/hr: push to GitHub and it deploys, several apps and their databases on one box.
Auto-deploy on push, PR previews, custom domains. The $5 welcome credit covers the start of it, no card and you can pause it to $0.
How Projects work →Project servers: many sites per server, one bill.
Worked example: a studio consolidated client hosting, $390.00 to $82.66 a month, 78%.
See that bill, before and after →Most things fit dedicated databases on AWS plus a project server for the apps.
{region}
See it in the live demo →What are you trying to do?
Which editor?
We migrate you, free, on every plan size.
An engineer runs it with you: match the instance, replicate or dump and restore, test the restore, cut over.
See one migration, step by step →The Supabase stack, one click, on a server of your own.
One click from the template, on a project server from about $0.02/hr. Nothing to build or wire up.
The Supabase deploy guide →Paste one config and your editor can run the whole backend.
Run it once, sign in when the browser opens and all 189 tools register.
An hourly instance you pause when done.
Restore a snapshot into a second instance, point staging at it, pause it when idle.
Price a small instance →Push to GitHub and it's live: auto-deploy, PR previews, custom domains.
A project server from about $0.02/hr runs several apps and their databases.
Deploy guides by framework →The one that matters most:
A managed database for as low as $5 a month. Project servers from about $0.02 an hour.
The smallest dedicated Postgres, a t4g.nano with 1 GB, is about $5.34 a month in ap-south-1 (Mumbai) and about $6.41 in us-east-1 and the $5 welcome credit covers its first days. Pay-as-you-go credits, top up from $5, no tiers.
Price your size →When production needs help, you talk to the engineers who run it and a founder reads every request.
Outages, restores, performance issues and migrations reach the people operating the platform. No response-time promise or uptime percentage we cannot prove.
How support and recovery work →Failover, point-in-time restore and backups cover the common ways a database fails.
Multi-AZ failover is a toggle on every engine, Postgres and MySQL add point-in-time restore and all engines get automated backups, live metrics and alerts.
The reliability and recovery details →We migrate you, free. An engineer plans and runs the move with you.
Match the instance, replicate or dump and restore, test the restore, cut over. Any plan size, no extra cost.
See one migration, step by step →Run it in your own AWS account with BYOC, in the region you need.
Encryption in transit and at rest on every managed instance. We do not hold SOC 2 or HIPAA today and we will say so before you spend an hour.
What we can and cannot certify →Fair enough. The live demo is the fastest way to see it.
Or claim $5 to start, no card needed.
Watch the live demo →Our founder
You've already sent us your setup from this browser. A founder will reply to it; no need to send it twice.
Got it. I'll reply to within two working days, from my own inbox.
Noted. One note when it changes, nothing else.
Frequently asked questions
Is Selfhost.dev cheaper than AWS RDS?
What are the most common RDS hidden costs?
How much does RDS Proxy cost compared to built-in connection pooling?
Why is AWS RDS expensive compared to running PostgreSQL on EC2?
What is the RDS true cost for a small PostgreSQL database?
How can I avoid RDS billing surprises on my AWS bill?
Is there a cheaper AWS RDS alternative for PostgreSQL?
What does an RDS pricing breakdown look like for a production database?
Does Selfhost.dev support BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) as an RDS alternative?
How do RDS Proxy costs compare to PgBouncer on Selfhost.dev?
Can I manage my PostgreSQL database with AI instead of the AWS console?
What monitoring and alerts are included with Selfhost.dev vs RDS?
How much can I save by switching from RDS to Selfhost.dev?
How do I migrate from RDS to Selfhost.dev?
The verdict
Which should
you choose?
- You need SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI or FedRAMP certifications today.
- You are deeply invested in the AWS ecosystem: Aurora, IAM auth, tight VPC integration.
- You want a single AWS-native vendor and bill and the markup is acceptable.
- You want the same Graviton performance for about 67% less in ap-south-1 or about 52% in us-east-1, with no per-feature add-ons.
- You want connection pooling, monitoring, alerts and PITR included, not billed separately.
- You want managed PostgreSQL in your own AWS account (BYOC) with a clean exit path, plus 189 MCP tools.
Weighing the whole field? Compare Selfhost.dev vs Neon and Selfhost.dev vs Aiven.