Engineering deep dives, migration guides, and tutorials for every database engine Layerbase supports.
71 posts across the blog
MotherDuck quietly retired the $25 Lite plan and raised the Business plan from $100 to $250 per month. There was no announcement. Here is what changed, who it affects, and where to host DuckDB if the new pricing does not fit.
IBM Cloudant has been the default managed CouchDB for over a decade, and the Lite free tier has quietly gotten less generous. Here are the modern managed CouchDB hosting options, including a real free tier, serverless scale-to-zero, and one-step migration off Cloudant.
Vercel does not have its own database anymore. Vercel Postgres was wound down in early 2025 and replaced with a Neon-native marketplace integration. So what should a Next.js app actually use? Here is the honest shortlist.
Set up PayloadCMS with managed PostgreSQL or MongoDB-compatible FerretDB on Layerbase Cloud, and why FerretDB beats MongoDB for most Payload projects.
Migrations, alternatives, and head-to-head comparisons for teams switching off an incumbent.
Algolia is excellent and expensive. Meilisearch gives you 90 percent of the developer experience at a fraction of the price, with a managed option that does not charge per search. Here is the honest comparison.
Databricks closed its $1B acquisition of Neon and, surprisingly, made everything cheaper. Storage is down 80%, the free tier doubled. So why are people still searching for Neon alternatives?
Step-by-step migration from IBM Cloudant to a managed Apache CouchDB on Layerbase Cloud, with continuous replication for zero downtime, verification scripts, rollback plan, and notes on what does and does not transfer (design docs, Mango indexes, Cloudant Search, IAM keys, attachments).
A complete, dated rundown of what IBM Cloudant has changed, deprecated, or removed in the last 18 months, including the new 20-database Lite-plan cap, the SpiderMonkey to QuickJS cutover on October 6, 2026, and the removed CouchApp design-doc handlers. With migration paths if any of these break your app.
Turso is the dominant libSQL host, but the per-row-read pricing model surprises a lot of people on real workloads. Here are the alternatives, including self-hosted libSQL.
MotherDuck is the dominant managed DuckDB option, but the pricing model and proprietary layer are not for everyone. Here are the alternatives, including plain hosted DuckDB.
4 more in this section. Use the search box above or the tag sidebar to find specific posts.
Side-by-side comparisons of overlapping engines.
A direct head-to-head between IBM Cloudant and Layerbase Cloud for managed Apache CouchDB hosting. Compares free tiers, database-count caps, pricing model, JavaScript engine, migration path, region coverage, and operational ergonomics, with a recommendation for each common workload.
Learn when to use full-text search, vector search, or both by running the same queries against Meilisearch and Qdrant side by side.
A practical comparison of ClickHouse and DuckDB with side-by-side code examples, covering when to pick a production analytics server versus an embedded analytical engine.
A hands-on comparison of Qdrant and Weaviate covering hybrid search, schema design, filtering, and side-by-side TypeScript code so you can pick the right vector database for your project.
A side-by-side comparison of QuestDB and InfluxDB for time-series workloads, with identical sensor pipelines in TypeScript to show how different these two databases really are.
A practical comparison of MongoDB and FerretDB covering wire protocol compatibility, storage engines, licensing, and where each one makes the most sense.
3 more in this section. Use the search box above or the tag sidebar to find specific posts.
Tutorials for each engine, with copy-paste code you can run locally.
Build a multi-party payment system with TigerBeetle and TypeScript, using double-entry bookkeeping, two-phase transfers, and balance limits to handle financial transactions correctly at scale.
Build a knowledge graph with TypeDB and TypeScript, covering type-safe schemas, pattern matching queries, multi-hop traversals, and inference rules that derive new facts from existing data.
Build a field survey app with CouchDB and TypeScript, exploring document storage, revision tracking, MapReduce views, Mango queries, and one-line replication.
Build a social movie recommendation graph with SurrealDB and TypeScript, using one query language that handles documents, relations, and graph traversals without any JOINs.
Build instant, typo-tolerant search with Meilisearch and TypeScript. Learn why traditional database queries fail on misspelled input and how Meilisearch returns the right results in milliseconds.
Build a semantic article search with Weaviate and TypeScript, covering schema-aware collections, vector search, hybrid search that combines keyword and semantic matching, and filtered queries.
14 more in this section. Use the search box above or the tag sidebar to find specific posts.
Help choosing the right engine for your use case.
PostgreSQL is the right database for your SaaS MVP, and you probably will not need anything else for a long time.
A practical guide to picking the right database for IoT sensor data, covering QuestDB, InfluxDB, and PostgreSQL with SpinDB examples you can run locally.
PostgreSQL for persistent data plus Redis for real-time features is the proven stack for building chat applications at any scale.
A practical comparison of PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, and CockroachDB to help you pick the right relational database for your project.
Background reading and category overviews.
There are too many vector databases and most teams need one of two of them. Here is the honest shortlist for 2026, when to pick each, and why pgvector is the default until it isn't.
TigerBeetle is purpose-built for double-entry financial accounting. There is no general-purpose managed offering yet. Here is the honest state of hosting in 2026.
What "serverless CouchDB" actually means in 2026, why the category is small (one real hosted option, IBM Cloudant, plus the new Layerbase Cloud free tier), and how to ship an offline-first or document-store app without managing the database yourself.
A practical guide to choosing between SQLite, LibSQL, and DuckDB when your project does not need a standalone database server.
PostgreSQL 18 shipped with native UUIDv7, virtual generated columns, OLD/NEW in RETURNING, temporal constraints, skip scan, and zero-downtime NOT NULL. Here are the features that matter most, with examples you can run locally.
A practical guide to when document databases like MongoDB make sense and when PostgreSQL with JSONB is the better choice.
2 more in this section. Use the search box above or the tag sidebar to find specific posts.
Running databases locally, on Windows, or without Docker.
A quick reference covering every database engine SpinDB supports, what each one does, and when to pick it.
A practical comparison of Docker Compose and SpinDB for running local development databases, covering setup, resource usage, and when each approach makes sense.
A practical guide to running PostgreSQL, Redis, Qdrant, ClickHouse, and other databases side by side on your local machine without the configuration headaches.
Skip the containers and docker-compose files by running PostgreSQL, Redis, and other databases as native binaries with a single CLI command.
FerretDB v2 depends on a PostgreSQL extension that doesn't exist on Windows yet. We built custom binaries so you can run FerretDB v1 natively on Windows without Docker or WSL.
Redis OSS does not ship native Windows binaries. We created custom binaries so you can run Redis natively on Windows without Docker or WSL, using Layerbase Desktop or SpinDB.
1 more in this section. Use the search box above or the tag sidebar to find specific posts.
Spin up a libSQL database that is already loaded with the Better Auth schema, then add email and password sign-in in a few lines. Local dev to production, same engine.
Lovable runs in the cloud, but you still want a local copy of the app pointing at a local database for testing. Here is how to do that without Docker, in under a minute.
Most real Lovable apps end up needing more than one database. Here is how to provision Postgres plus a cache plus vector storage in parallel and wire them all into the same project.
Lovable defaults to Supabase. If you want your own Postgres database (less lock-in, predictable bill, room for other engines), here is the short version of how to swap it.
Lovable apps that talk to a database hit a point where you need caching, rate limits, or session storage. Here is how to add Redis or Valkey without leaving Lovable.
Lovable defaults to Supabase. Here is the honest shortlist of what else to use for the database layer, and when each one is the right pick.
3 more in this section. Use the search box above or the tag sidebar to find specific posts.