PostgREST Review, Pricing & Features

PostgREST review: instantly turn a PostgreSQL database into a REST API. Features, setup, pricing and alternatives compared for 2026.

Category
API Tools
Pricing
Open Source, from Free
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 19, 2026
Founded
2014
Headquarters
Not publicly disclosed (distributed open-source community)
APIOpen SourceSelf-Hosted

Overview

PostgREST is an open-source web server that inspects an existing PostgreSQL database and automatically exposes its tables, views and functions as a RESTful HTTP API, removing the need to hand-write CRUD backend code.

Created by Joe Nelson around 2014 and now maintained by a small open-source team including Steve Chavez, PostgREST has become widely known as the API layer that powers Supabase, contributing to its adoption well beyond its original standalone use case.

Key Features

PostgREST automatically generates REST endpoints for database tables, views and stored procedures, supporting filtering, sorting, pagination and resource embedding (joining related tables) entirely through URL query parameters, with no custom route code required.

Authorization is delegated to PostgreSQL itself: PostgREST decodes JSON Web Tokens to determine a database role for each request and relies on Postgres row-level security and grants, keeping permission logic declared in a single place rather than duplicated in application code.

Pricing

PostgREST is completely free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tier, since it is a self-hosted developer tool rather than a hosted commercial product.

The only costs involved are for the underlying PostgreSQL database and whatever infrastructure a team uses to run the PostgREST server itself, whether self-hosted or as part of a platform like Supabase that bundles it into a broader paid or free hosting plan.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Free and open source with no licensing cost
  • Eliminates the need to hand-write boilerplate CRUD API code
  • Single source of truth for authorization lives declaratively inside the database
  • Lightweight, high-performance Haskell server with a small operational footprint
  • Powers Supabase's API layer, giving it a large and growing real-world install base

Cons

  • Requires comfort with PostgreSQL role-based security and row-level security to use safely
  • Less flexible than a hand-built API for highly custom business logic outside the database
  • Smaller ecosystem and community than more general-purpose API frameworks
  • No official managed hosting from the core project itself; teams self-host or rely on platforms like Supabase
  • Documentation and configuration require some familiarity with SQL and Postgres internals

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is PostgREST free?

Yes, PostgREST is free and open source under the MIT license with no paid tier.

How is PostgREST different from PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is the relational database itself. PostgREST is a separate tool that sits in front of a PostgreSQL database and automatically exposes it as a REST API.

Who created PostgREST?

PostgREST was created by developer Joe Nelson (begriffs) around 2014 and is now maintained by a small open-source team including Steve Chavez.

Does PostgREST require writing backend code?

No, PostgREST automatically generates REST endpoints from your database schema, removing the need to hand-write CRUD backend code for most use cases.

Does Supabase use PostgREST?

Yes, PostgREST powers the auto-generated REST API layer inside Supabase.

How does PostgREST handle authorization?

It decodes JSON Web Tokens to assign a database role to each request and relies on PostgreSQL's own row-level security and permission grants.

What are PostgREST's main alternatives?

Hasura and PostGraphile offer similar database-to-API generation but produce GraphQL APIs instead of REST, and hand-built frameworks like Django REST Framework are a manual alternative.

Comparisons

Related Tools