Xata Alternatives After Xata Lite: Branching Postgres and More

Xata changed shape, so "Xata alternatives" means two different things in 2026. Xata Lite, the original product, was permanently retired on February 28, 2026. The current Xata is a managed Postgres platform built around copy-on-write branching, with no ongoing free cloud tier. If you want branching Postgres, the main alternatives are Neon, StitchDB and Supabase. If you need a whole app backend (auth, files, APIs, search) and not only a database, StitchDB and Supabase are the closer fit.

This guide covers both cases and is honest about where the new Xata is the best pick.

#What Xata is today (as of November 2026)

Per xata.io and its pricing page:

• Standard, unmodified Postgres with branching done in the storage layer. Branches share unchanged data with their parent and store only their own changes.
• Production-like branches with built-in anonymization, and idle branches that hibernate and wake on the first query.
• Three ways to run it: Open Source (free, self-hosted, about 10 s wake-up, community support), Xata Cloud (from $0.012/hour per instance plus $0.28/GB-month storage, about 1 s wake-up, AWS and GCP, SOC 2 and GDPR), and BYOC in your own AWS, Azure or GCP account.
• Cloud instances range from micro (1 GB RAM, $9/month) to 8xlarge (128 GB RAM, $1,121/month).
• A 14-day free trial on Xata Cloud, after which a card is needed.

The Xata Lite client repository is now a public archive, and its notice points users to the new platform.

#Two kinds of Xata user

If you used Xata Lite, you have already moved or are rebuilding. The question is whether you want "just Postgres" (the new Xata, Neon) or a backend that also gives you auth, storage and an HTTP API so your frontend can keep talking to a service directly (StitchDB, Supabase).

If you are evaluating the new Xata, you are comparing branching Postgres platforms. Here the questions are branch speed, data anonymization, scale-to-zero, cost per branch and where it runs.

#Comparison

#The alternatives

#Neon

Neon is the closest match to the new Xata: serverless Postgres with copy-on-write branches and scale-to-zero. The Free plan includes 100 projects, 1 GB of storage per project (20 GB total), 100 CU-hours per project per month and 10 branches per project; compute suspends after 5 minutes idle. Launch and Scale are usage-based with no monthly minimum: $0.106 and $0.222 per CU-hour, $0.35 per GB-month of storage (as of November 2026). Source: neon.com/pricing.

Pick Neon over Xata if you want a free cloud tier and many small databases. Pick Xata over Neon if you need BYOC in your own cloud account, a self-hosted option, or built-in anonymization of production clones.

#StitchDB

StitchDB is a full backend on a dedicated Postgres database per project: Auth, a REST API from your schema, GraphQL, Realtime, Storage, Edge Functions, cron and queues. For Xata users, three features line up:

Preview branches. On paid plans, each branch is a separate database with its own URL, keys, Auth users, storage and functions, built from production's migrations and your seed.sql. You can also ask for production data with personal data masked: e-mails, names, phones, addresses, IPs and tokens are replaced with fake values inside production's own query, and the same real value maps to the same fake value across tables so joins still work. Pro includes 3 branches per project; idle branches pause after 3 days. See branching.

stitchdb branches create feature/checkout --with-data --wait
stitchdb branches switch feature/checkout
stitchdb db push

Search. Full-text and semantic search over your tables without running a separate search service: pick up to 8 columns, StitchDB keeps the index current by trigger, and results respect row level security.

const { data } = await stitchdb.search('posts', 'running shoes', { limit: 20 })

Files. Buckets with policies, signed URLs, image resizing by URL and an S3-compatible endpoint.

Prices as of November 2026: Free $0, Pro $15.99/month (10 GB database, 100 GB files, 1 TB egress), Scale $49/month. See pricing.

Trade-offs: StitchDB branches are not copy-on-write snapshots; they are built from migrations (plus optional masked data), so creating a branch with a large dataset takes longer than a storage-level clone. No branches on Free. EU-only regions, no BYOC and no self-hosted edition, all of which the new Xata offers.

#Supabase

Supabase has preview branches, a full backend and self-hosting, and runs in 17 AWS regions. Free projects pause after a week of inactivity; Pro is from $25/month (as of November 2026). Choose it if you want a full backend and regions outside Europe.

#How to evaluate branching for your team

Branching sounds the same everywhere until you try it on your own data. Run this test on each candidate:

1. Create a branch from production (or a realistic copy) and time it. Copy-on-write platforms such as Xata and Neon should be near-instant regardless of size; migration-built branches such as StitchDB's depend on how much data you copy.
2. Check what is in it. Schema only, seed data, full data, or masked data? For pull request previews, masked production data catches far more bugs than an empty schema, without putting personal data at risk.
3. Run your migrations against it and confirm they apply the same way they will in production.
4. Point a preview deployment at it. With a database-only platform you also need auth and storage for that preview; with a full backend the branch includes them.
5. Leave it idle for a few days and see what happens: hibernation, pausing, or charges.

The answer to step 4 is often what decides between a database platform and a backend platform.

#When the new Xata is the best choice

• You need BYOC: the database must run in your own AWS, Azure or GCP account.
• You want fast, cheap branches of a large production database for every pull request, with anonymization built in.
• You want an open source platform you can self-host with the same branching model.
• You only need a database and already have auth, files and APIs elsewhere.

#Moving to a new Postgres host

The new Xata, Neon, Supabase and StitchDB all speak standard Postgres, so moves between them use normal tools. On StitchDB, Import from Postgres copies tables, data, views, functions, triggers and sequences from any Postgres 12 or newer. When the source has logical replication enabled, the copy is live and the switch-over takes seconds; otherwise it runs a one-time copy. A manual move is a pg_dump and pg_restore:

pg_dump --format=custom --no-owner "$SOURCE_URL" > app.dump
pg_restore --no-owner --no-acl -d "$TARGET_URL" app.dump

Use the direct connection (port 5432) for both ends, not a transaction pooler. For the full StitchDB comparison, see StitchDB vs Xata; for branching in general, see database branching for preview environments.

#FAQ

#Is Xata Lite still available?

No. Xata's client repository says Xata Lite was permanently retired on February 28, 2026.

#Does Xata have a free tier?

The open source edition is free to self-host. Xata Cloud has a 14-day free trial, then pay-as-you-go pricing (as of November 2026).

#What is the best free alternative to Xata?

For branching Postgres, Neon's free plan includes 10 branches per project. For a full backend, StitchDB and Supabase have free tiers; StitchDB branches start on Pro.

#Can I self-host Xata?

Yes. Xata lists an Open Source plan that you run yourself, with branching and scale-to-zero.

Need more than a database? Start a StitchDB project with Auth, Storage, search and branching in one place.