Tools
Know what's in the toolbox
What each tool is, how it's licensed, and when a dev would actually reach for it.
Databases & backends
Relational, document, embedded, and vector stores, plus the backends and ORMs around them.
Supabase
Open sourcePostgres backend-as-a-service
A hosted Postgres database bundled with auth, storage, realtime subscriptions, edge functions, and auto-generated APIs. Authorization is enforced in the database with Row Level Security policies.
PostgreSQL
Open sourceRelational SQL database
A mature, standards-compliant relational database with strong JSON support and a large extension ecosystem, including PostGIS for geospatial data and pgvector for embeddings.
SQLite
Public domainEmbedded single-file database
A full SQL database that lives in one file inside your application, with no server to run. Reads and writes are local disk operations, which makes it extremely fast for single-process workloads.
Firebase
Managed serviceDocument backend-as-a-service
Google's app platform: Firestore document database, auth, hosting, cloud functions, analytics, and push messaging. Strong realtime sync and offline support on mobile.
Redis
Open sourceIn-memory key-value store
An in-memory data structure store used as a cache, session store, rate limiter, queue, and pub/sub broker. Responses are typically sub-millisecond because data lives in RAM.
MongoDB
Source-availableDocument database
Stores JSON-like documents with flexible schemas and scales horizontally with sharding. Commonly run through the managed Atlas service.
Prisma
Open sourceTypeScript ORM
Define your schema in one file and Prisma generates a fully typed client plus migrations. A renamed column becomes a compile error instead of a runtime failure.
Drizzle
Open sourceTypeScript SQL query builder
A lightweight ORM whose query API mirrors SQL, with schemas written in TypeScript. Small runtime footprint and a good fit for serverless and edge environments.
Pinecone
Managed serviceManaged vector database
A fully hosted vector database for storing and searching embeddings. No infrastructure to run; you pay for storage and queries.
Qdrant
Open sourceVector search engine
An open-source vector database written in Rust, with payload filtering alongside similarity search. Self-host it or use the managed cloud.
DuckDB
Open sourceEmbedded analytical database
A columnar SQL engine that runs in-process, like SQLite but built for analytics. Queries CSV and Parquet files directly and handles large local datasets quickly.