/comparison/ · Cratefield next to the alternatives
A backend you compile, next to the platforms you configure.
Cratefield is a typed Rust backend composed from modules, with one database per tenant and no egress bill, on an open core you can take with you. Here it is beside Supabase, Vercel, Railway and Firebase. The managed service is still in early access, so its column is what it will be, and every other column is the vendor's own, checked September 2026. Each of these is better than us at something, and that is named below.
| Dimension | Cratefield / Harness | Supabase | Vercel | Railway | Firebase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Rust modules compiled into one wasm Worker with its own database | Postgres with auto REST, realtime and auth | Frontend framework host with serverless and edge functions | Any container or service you can build an image for | Client SDKs over Firestore, Auth and Cloud Functions |
| Where your code runs | Cloudflare Workers at the edge, or a native tokio binary on Postgres | Supabase cloud on AWS | Vercel's edge and serverless network | Railway containers | Google Cloud |
| Tenant isolation | One database per tenant, by default | Shared Postgres with row-level security, or one project per tenant | At the application layer; not a data feature | One container per service | Shared Firestore with security rules |
| Scale to zero | Yes; an idle backend costs only its storage | Paid projects stay warm; free projects pause after 7 days idle | Serverless functions scale to zero | Containers bill for held RAM and CPU while up | Functions scale to zero; Firestore bills per operation |
| Egress billed | No charge for data out | 250 GB on Pro, then $0.09/GB | Billed as bandwidth | $0.05/GB from the first byte | Google Cloud network rates |
| Open-source core | Yes, MIT, run it yourself | Yes, the platform is open source | No | No | No |
| Take it with you | Cargo.toml, MIT core, fz data export, a documented exit | Postgres is portable; platform features less so | Proprietary platform | Portable container images | Proprietary |
| Managed status | Planned — not running yet; run Harness yourself today | Generally available | Generally available | Generally available | Generally available |
supabase.com/
Being fair
When one of the others is the right answer.
- Supabase, when you want Postgres with instant REST, realtime and auth today, a large ecosystem, and SQL you already know. It is the faster start, and its free tier is generous. The full row-by-row against Supabase is here.
- Vercel, when the project is frontend-first — Next.js, preview deploys, the best frontend developer experience there is. Cratefield is a backend, not a place to host your frontend, and the two sit together fine.
- Railway, when you want to run arbitrary containers in any language, wire a few services together, and you do not need a database per tenant. It is simpler when isolation is not the point.
- Firebase, when you are building a mobile app that wants realtime sync, offline, and batteries-included client SDKs. Its client libraries are hard to beat for that shape.
Choose Cratefield when you want a typed Rust backend assembled from modules, one database per tenant by default, no egress bills, and an open core with a documented exit — and you are comfortable that the managed service is early access, so today you run Harness yourself while the hosted version is built.