Dharmendra Jagodana
Founder of BuildBase. Builds the platform and the six products that run on it.
101 posts · page 7 of 9
Database-per-tenant vs shared schema: the decision is about migrations, not isolation
Shared schema, schema-per-tenant or database-per-tenant. Everyone frames it as isolation versus cost. The real fork is how many times you run every migration.
Entitlements are not feature flags, even when the same component renders both
A flag says the code is ready. An entitlement says this customer paid. Same boolean at the render site, different owner, lifecycle and failure mode.
Quotas are not credits: which one your plan actually needs
A quota resets on a fixed cycle and belongs to the plan. A credit is a balance the customer bought. Pick by who absorbs the spike.
The hidden revenue tax of billing platforms
Some billing platforms charge a percentage of revenue instead of a flat fee. Here is the crossover math showing when that costs more than a flat plan, and how to run it with your own numbers.
Self-host vs managed: the real cost comparison
What self-hosting BuildBase really costs: a custom-priced license plus compute, a managed database, monitoring and patch time, line by line against one flat managed bill.
The cost of building usage metering yourself
The real engineering cost of building usage metering in-house: build time, the maintenance tax that follows it, and the meter-drift bug nobody prices until it happens.
The cost of building auth yourself
The real line-item cost of building auth in-house at small-SaaS scale, in hours and dollars, not the enterprise figures everyone else quotes.
What database-per-tenant actually costs
The real cost of a database per tenant: infra bills, connection pooling, ops load, and the tenant count where it stops paying for itself.
Outseta alternatives: what actually replaces the CRM and the help desk
Most "Outseta alternatives" lists drift into HubSpot and Salesforce, tools Outseta never competed with. Here is what actually replaces its no-code login, paywall and help desk.
Lago alternatives, sorted by what you are actually trying to avoid
Lago alternatives compared by what they replace: a metering engine now owned by Stripe or Adyen, a subscription specialist, or billing bundled into your own backend.
Stripe Billing alternatives, sorted by what they actually replace
Stripe Billing alternatives compared by what they replace: a metering engine like Lago or Orb, a merchant of record like Paddle, or billing bundled into the rest of your backend.
Supabase alternatives: Firebase, Appwrite, Nhost, PocketBase and when none of them are the fix
Supabase alternatives compared by what they actually replace - the database, the auth layer, or the billing and workspace layer Supabase never had in the first place.