Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.

The grid says what these tools are. This says what builders did about it — one decision per person, changeable whenever you change your mind.

# Tool comparison — Instant DB vs Drizzle ORM vs PocketBase

Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects.
Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code.

## Instant DB (instant-db)
- URL: https://www.instantdb.com
- Category: Databases & backend
- Cost: mixed — Free: 1GB storage, unlimited API requests, 1 team member per app, never paused, commercial use allowed. Pro $30/mo (10GB, then $0.125/GB, 10 members, 7-day backups).
- What it is: An open-source realtime database modelled on Firebase but with real relations and a graph query language, offering optimistic updates, offline support and presence out of the box. The free plan gives 1GB of storage with unlimited API requests, one team member per app, and explicitly permits commercial use.
- Why builders pick it: Free projects are never paused, which is rare here — your weekend demo still works in six months. Ships a hosted MCP server at mcp.instantdb.com plus an agent skill that teaches models its schema syntax.
- Trap: Small team and a young ecosystem, so models know it far less well than Firebase or Supabase — expect to paste docs into context. The jump to Pro is $30, steeper than Supabase's $25.
- Wiring: npx skills add instantdb/skills
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/instant-db

## Drizzle ORM (drizzle-orm)
- URL: https://orm.drizzle.team
- Category: Databases & backend
- Cost: free — Free and open source under Apache 2.0. Drizzle Studio and Drizzle Kit are free; Drizzle Gateway is in closed alpha.
- What it is: A headless TypeScript ORM whose query API deliberately mirrors SQL, so a Drizzle query reads like the statement it compiles to. Supports Postgres, MySQL, SQLite, SingleStore, MSSQL and CockroachDB, with dedicated drivers for Neon, Supabase, Turso, PlanetScale and Cloudflare D1. Drizzle Kit handles migrations.
- Why builders pick it: No code generation step and no separate engine binary, so it runs inside edge runtimes and whatever sandbox an agent is building in. Being close to SQL, models translate a schema idea into working queries with fewer invented helpers.
- Trap: Relational query ergonomics are thinner than Prisma's, and drizzle-kit push against production can drop columns without much ceremony. Migration tooling has churned across versions.
- Wiring: npm i drizzle-orm && npm i -D drizzle-kit
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/drizzle-orm

## PocketBase (pocketbase)
- URL: https://pocketbase.io
- Category: Databases & backend
- Cost: free — Free and MIT-licensed. You pay only for a host — roughly $4-6/mo on Hetzner, Fly.io or a small VPS.
- What it is: One executable containing an embedded SQLite database, REST API, realtime subscriptions, email and OAuth2 authentication, file storage and an admin dashboard. Extensible through Go or JavaScript hooks. Still pre-1.0 at the v0.39 series, but widely run in production on a single small server.
- Why builders pick it: Zero cloud bill, zero vendor account, and the entire backend is one file you can copy onto a $5 VPS. Ideal when you want the code and the data to be genuinely yours with no pausing rules.
- Trap: Single node only — no horizontal scaling and no managed backups, so you own uptime, patching and disk. Pre-1.0 means occasional breaking changes between minor releases.
- Wiring: Download the binary, then run ./pocketbase serve
- Full dossier: /api/public/tools/pocketbase

## Quick read

- Free with no card: Drizzle ORM, PocketBase.

## Rules
1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is.
2. Read the full dossier before integrating.
3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.

Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=instant-db,drizzle-orm,pocketbase