Why I Built Supascale (and How It Makes Self-Hosting Supabase Way Less Painful)
I run an agency where most of my clients need fairly simple Supabase setups — blogs, galleries, newsletter forms, that kind of thing. At $25/month for Supabase Pro plus $10 per additional project, those costs were eating into my margins fast. I kept thinking there had to be a better way to self-host this stuff without spending an afternoon fighting Docker configs every time.So I built Supascale. It started as a CLI tool to manage multiple Supabase instances on one server, and has since grown into a full platform with a web dashboard, API, automated backups, and custom domain support.
The problem
Self-hosting one Supabase instance is fine. The docs walk you through it. But the second you need another instance on the same box — different client, staging environment, multi-tenant setup — things fall apart. Ports collide, containers share names, secrets get reused, and there's no clean way to manage individual projects without everything stepping on each other.I kept writing the same bash scripts to work around this. Eventually I just turned those scripts into a proper tool.
Supascale CLI (free, open source)
The CLI is the open source version. It's a bash script, GPL v3 licensed, and it handles the fundamentals:
Code:
./supascale.sh add my-project
./supascale.sh start my-project
./supascale.sh stop my-projectBeyond basic project management, the CLI also handles:
[]Container updates with auto-rollback — takes a full snapshot before updating, runs health checks after, and rolls back automatically if anything fails. You can target specific services with.Code:--only=db,studio
[]Backups — full or component-level (database, storage, functions, config). Includes SHA256 checksums, AES-256 encryption, S3 upload, retention policies, and dry-run restores that test everything without touching live data.- Custom domains with SSL — detects your web server (Nginx, Apache, or Caddy), sets up the reverse proxy, and provisions a Let's Encrypt cert automatically.
Supascale Pro ($39.99, one-time)
After using the CLI for a while I wanted something I could manage from a browser without SSHing into servers all the time. So I built Supascale Pro — a web-based dashboard that sits on top of everything the CLI does and adds a lot more.The big differences from the free version:
[]Web GUI dashboard — create, monitor, start/stop, and configure all your Supabase instances from one interface. No terminal needed.
[]Selective service deployment — only spin up the Supabase services you actually need. If a project doesn't use Realtime or Edge Functions, skip them and save resources on your VPS.
[]OAuth provider config — set up Google, GitHub, Discord, and other social login providers for your projects through the UI. No manually editing .env files.
[]Automated scheduled backups — configure backup schedules and retention policies from the dashboard. Supports AWS S3, Google Cloud, Azure, Cloudflare R2, or any S3-compatible storage.
[]One-click restore — pick a backup, click restore, done.
[]Full REST API — everything in the dashboard is available through the API with granular read/write permissions. Automate your whole infrastructure if you want.
[]Resource monitoring — view container status, logs, and system resource usage per project.
[]SMTP, auth, storage, and pooling config — per-project settings without touching config files.
There's a live demo if you want to see the interface before buying.
Who this is for
Agencies managing multiple client projects. Dev teams that want isolated environments per branch or client. Anyone doing multi-tenant architecture. Or just anyone who's tired of paying Supabase per-project fees when a $10/month VPS could handle the same workload.If you just want the basics and are comfortable in a terminal, the free CLI will get you there. If you want a proper management layer with a UI and API, Supascale Pro is worth a look.
Docs are at supascale.app/docs and you can find us on Discord if you have questions.
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