Updated October 25, 2026
· ~2 min read
All three give a small team a working backend in days. They differ in what the data looks like, where it lives, and what happens when the product outgrows the platform's defaults.
Amplify Gen 2 generates real AWS resources (Cognito, AppSync, DynamoDB, S3, Lambda) in your own account from TypeScript. Firebase is Google's integrated platform, with Firestore as the default database and Data Connect for PostgreSQL. Supabase is Postgres with auth, storage, realtime and edge functions around it.
Amplify charges nothing itself; you pay the underlying services, for example AppSync at $4.00 per million operations and Cognito Essentials at $0.015 per MAU after 10,000 free. Costs scale per request and per user. Supabase is a plan (Pro from $25 a month with compute credits) plus usage, and costs scale mostly with database compute. Firebase has a free Spark plan and pay-as-you-go Blaze, with Firestore billed per document read, write and delete, which rewards careful data modelling and punishes chatty queries.
Question 1 of 3
Do users need to work offline?
**Amplify Gen 2:** you are on AWS or will be, want resources in your own account under IAM, and want an exit to plain CDK. Weaker on offline-first now that DataStore has no Gen 2 equivalent. **Firebase:** mobile-first apps that need offline sync and push notifications that just work (Firestore offline persistence and Cloud Messaging). Strongest client SDKs; Google Cloud underneath. **Supabase:** you want Postgres and SQL from day one, row-level security, and a portable core. The easiest to leave, because the database is ordinary Postgres.
Amplify Gen 1 to Gen 2 Migration and Pinpoint Exit
Amplify Gen 1 reaches end of life on May 1, 2027 and the Pinpoint-backed Analytics, Push Notifications and In-App Messaging lost their backend on October 30, 2026. We move each app to Gen 2, replace DataStore and Pinpoint features, and keep users, data and sign-ins intact.
Serverless Migration
Move from expensive always-on compute to serverless architecture: reduce costs, eliminate patching, and scale automatically.
We work with startups and growing companies on AWS architecture decisions. Tell us about your situation and we will recommend the right approach.
As of October 25, 2026. Provided as is, for general information, and accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Not legal, compliance, tax, financial or other professional advice. Prices, limits and vendor services change; check current vendor documentation before relying on anything here. Terms of use.