Aurabase vs Nhost: open source Postgres backends

Aurabase builds 12 services (aura-gateway, aura-auth, aura-db, aura-realtime, aura-storage, aura-functions, aura-ai…) on the same internal libraries — aura-core, aura-crypto, aura-db-adapters — and the same compiled language, without garbage collector. A single core changes the surface of integration bugs between components, not just the perceived performance.

Nhost takes a different path: Hasura sits in front of your Postgres to automatically generate GraphQL queries, mutations and subscriptions, without any resolver code to write. This is a real initial speed gain — but it adds a layer of query generation between your application and your database, with its own permissions settings to maintain in addition to your Postgres RLS policies.

When you want GraphQL on Aurabase, pg_graphql runs inside your Postgres instance — opt-in activation, automatically inherited RLS, no separate services to deploy or evolve alongside your schema. See our detailed comparison pg_graphql vs Hasura vs PostGraphile.

Nhost makes GraphQL a mandatory platform component — each Nhost project automatically embeds Hasura. On Aurabase, this is an option: REST via native PostgREST by default, GraphQL activated when you need it, RPC SQL otherwise. You don't pay for the complexity of a layer you don't use.

Nhost documentation lists HIPAA as a “coming soon” feature on its 2026 pricing schedule — a signal that regulatory compliance is not yet a central product focus for them. Aurabase treats this area differently: verified production infrastructure in Germany (Nuremberg, Falkenstein) and Finland (Helsinki), operated by Aurabase SAS, a company incorporated under French law, with a GDPR/CLOUD Act content pillar in its own right.

Read the complete guide: GDPR compliant and EU sovereign backend

Aurabase exposes a native NL2SQL endpoint: a natural language question becomes a tree-validated SELECT query via sqlparser, bounded to LIMIT, executed read-only — a verified product differentiator in code, not a third-party connector assembled on top. See our definition of NL2SQL and the step-by-step tutorial.

Nhost offers an AI assistant with access to GraphQL schema and auto-generated vector embeddings — useful for speeding up development, but it's not an NL2SQL endpoint exposed to your end users with a documented security contract. Two different AI abilities, not directly substitutable.

If your application is already designed around GraphQL and you want a CRUD generated in a few minutes without writing a single query, Nhost has a real product advantage in this specific use case — Hasura is mature and proven at scale.

The compromise appears as soon as you want native REST without an intermediate layer, Postgres RLS as the only permissions surface, native NL2SQL exposed as an API, or documented GDPR/CLOUD Act compliance as a product focus — this is precisely where Aurabase builds its differentiator.