The Open Source Stack That Replaces Vercel, Supabase, and Clerk: VPS + Postgres + BetterAuth

Sina (Big Sina) walks through the deployment choices for his social scheduling product and explains why he skipped every managed service in the standard indie stack. His argument is that per-user and per-request pricing from Vercel, Supabase, Convex, and Clerk destroys the unit economics of a real application, while a VPS with Postgres and BetterAuth gives you a fixed monthly cost that stays flat as users grow. The video is a walking monologue shot in a parking lot, with an opening title card that spells out the stack: VPS + Postgres backend + BetterAuth.

The Stack: Three Open Source Substitutions

The opening frames lay out the whole thesis on screen before he says a word. The title card reads "the OPEN-SOURCE tech stack to DEPLOY an APP: VPS + Postgres Backend + BetterAuth." Each piece replaces a paid managed service:

• A VPS instead of Vercel for hosting
• Self-hosted Postgres instead of Supabase or Convex for the backend
• BetterAuth, an open source authentication framework, instead of Clerk for login and auth

His objection to the managed options is the same in each case. After roughly 1,000 users, the free tiers end and every additional user adds cost. As he puts it about Clerk, he refuses to pay for every user that logs into his app.

The Vercel Bill That Anchors the Argument

The first seconds of the video show an inset screenshot of a Vercel invoice totaling $46,485.99, with line items for data transfer, edge requests, web analytics, fluid compute, developer seats, and speed insights. That image comes from the genre of viral surprise-bill screenshots, and he uses it as the worst case for serverless pricing. His own math is smaller but still decisive for him. He says deploying his product to Vercel would put him down hundreds of dollars per month before breaking even. A VPS is a fixed price regardless of traffic.

Why His App Does Not Fit Serverless

He gives context on the product itself. It schedules content to all social platforms, and he plans to add an agent to it later. The mid-video captions show him saying "add an agent" while he explains this. Agents run long, make many outbound calls, and burn compute in ways that map badly onto per-request serverless billing. He extends this into a broader claim that all applications are becoming agentic applications, so serverless pricing will fit fewer and fewer real products over time.

He carves out one exception. Vercel works fine for info products and guides with some users. His line is that if you are building a guide, deploy that on Vercel, and save the VPS for actual applications.

The Security Objection, Answered with Tailscale

The most common pushback he reports hearing is that a VPS will get hacked. His answer is network isolation. His VPS is completely closed off, and the only way in is through Tailscale from his own devices. Tailscale builds a private WireGuard mesh between machines, so the server exposes nothing to the public internet except the app itself. The captions in the closing frames hit the words "completely closed off" as he makes this point.

The Skill Argument

He closes on effort. His numbers: a VPS takes one hour max to set up, and once you learn the process it stays simple. He frames it as one of the most valuable skills a builder can learn, and contrasts it with engineers at jobs who assume self-hosting cannot scale. His response, said with a grin in the final frames, is that scaling it himself is exactly what he is doing.

Key Takeaways

• The stack: a VPS for hosting, self-hosted Postgres for the backend, BetterAuth for authentication. Every piece is open source or self-managed with a fixed cost.
• Per-user and per-request pricing (Clerk, Supabase, Convex, Vercel serverless) means costs grow with adoption, which can put you underwater before you break even.
• Serverless suits low-traffic info products and guides. Compute-heavy applications, especially agentic ones, fit better on fixed-price infrastructure.
• Lock down a VPS by closing it off entirely and using Tailscale for admin access from your own devices.
• He estimates VPS setup at one hour once learned, and calls it one of the most valuable skills a builder can pick up.

Resources

• BetterAuth - open source authentication framework he used instead of Clerk
• Tailscale - private network he uses as the only way into his VPS
• PostgreSQL - the self-hosted database behind his backend
• Vercel - the serverless platform he argues against for real applications
• Supabase - managed Postgres backend he chose not to use
• Convex - managed backend he chose not to use
• Clerk - managed auth service he chose not to use