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#web#devops

Shipping side projects on Vercel + Supabase for free

My default stack for launching small tools fast — auth, database, and deploys with zero ops.

Riki Zulkarnan
Riki ZulkarnanApr 2, 2026
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3 min read7 likes

#Why this stack

Side projects die from ops, not from code. Vercel plus Supabase gives auth, a Postgres database, and deploys on every push — all on free tiers that comfortably survive the first thousand users.

#The setup

One repo, one environment file, no servers. Preview deployments per pull request mean I can share a working link before the feature is merged — which is also how I demo to clients.

#What it costs

Zero, until it matters. The day a project earns real traffic you flip to paid tiers without changing a line of architecture — the pricing cliff is a migration you never have to do.

.env.local
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL=https://xyz.supabase.co
NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=eyJ...
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=eyJ...  # server only
DATABASE_URL=postgres://...      # Prisma migrate