If you've ever shipped a side project with PocketBase, you know the feeling: the backend itself takes 5 minutes to set up... and then you spend the next 5 hours on the VPS, SSL certs, firewall rules, systemd services, backups, and monitoring.
I love PocketBase. Single binary, embedded SQLite, real-time subscriptions, built-in auth, admin dashboard β it's the perfect backend for small and medium projects. What I didn't love was doing the same DevOps dance for every new idea.
So I built PocketBase Cloud β fully managed PocketBase hosting that gets you a live, secured, monitored instance in about 30 seconds.
What it does
You click deploy, and you get:
- β‘ A running PocketBase instance in ~30 seconds β zero server config
- π Automatic SSL + DDoS protection β no certbot, no Cloudflare tutorials
- π 6 global regions β Germany, Finland, US East/West, and Singapore
- π¦ Frontend hosting included β deploy your SPA next to your backend
- πΎ Automated backups and live monitoring (CPU, memory, bandwidth)
- π€ AI-agent friendly β docs and prompts ready so your LLM/coding agent can build against it directly
Real-time subscriptions work out of the box, exactly like self-hosted PocketBase β because it is PocketBase, just without the babysitting.
The part I'm most proud of: multi-instance hosting
Here's the thing about indie developers: we don't have one project. We have twelve, and eleven of them get 40 visitors a month.
Paying $5β10/month per project on typical BaaS platforms kills side projects fast. So PocketBase Cloud's Pro plan works differently: you pay for a dedicated server (from $13/month), and you can run as many PocketBase instances on it as the resources allow. Each instance is fully isolated β its own database, credentials, and URL.
Lightweight apps are efficient enough that many users comfortably run 10β20 instances on the base plan. That's roughly $1/project/month. The Pro plan also supports Node.js/Deno/Bun backend hosting if you need custom server code alongside PocketBase.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 1 instance, 50 MB storage, frontend hosting β try it out |
| Starter | $5/mo | 1 instance, 3 GB storage, custom domain, 6 regions, SSL + DDoS |
| Pro | From $13/mo | Unlimited instances on a dedicated server, pay as you go |
All plans come with a 99.9% uptime SLA. The Free plan asks for a Stripe subscription (no charge) just to prevent abuse, and free instances are removed after 30 days of inactivity β fair warning.
Why not just self-host?
You absolutely can! PocketBase is famously easy to self-host, and if you enjoy managing servers, go for it.
But "easy to start" and "easy to run in production" are different things. Self-hosting means you own updates, SSL renewals, backups, uptime monitoring, and the 2 AM "why is my server down" investigation. For me, the math was simple: my time debugging nginx configs is worth more than $5/month.
Try it
The Free plan takes about 30 seconds to set up β genuinely, that's the whole pitch:
π pocketbasecloud.com
If you deploy something on it, I'd love to hear what you're building. And if you hit any rough edges, tell me β it's an indie product and feedback directly shapes the roadmap.
Happy shipping! π
Questions about PocketBase itself, migrating from Firebase/Supabase, or running multiple projects on one server? Drop them in the comments β I've spent way too much time in this ecosystem and I'm happy to nerd out.
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