Aiven PostgreSQL: An Alternative to Neon or Supabase

If you claimed the $300 Aiven credit while spinning up a self-hosted n8n workflow on Render, you’re sitting on more than a temporary database. You’ve got a playground for production-grade data infrastructure. Here’s how to make the most of that credit and when to reach for the free tier instead of burning paid minutes.

Start with the evergreen free tier

Aiven’s free PostgreSQL plan runs indefinitely and doesn’t touch your $300 trial. Use it as the default backend for n8n, hackathon prototypes, or proof-of-concept automations. You still get managed backups, SSL, and an easy upgrade path, but you keep the trial balance ready for bigger experiments.

Experiments that justify spending credits

When you’re ready to explore the broader Aiven ecosystem, treat the $300 as your 30-day sandbox. Spin up services intentionally, run focused experiments, then tear them down the moment you’re done.

1. Build a resilient n8n stack

• Service: Aiven for PostgreSQL (Business plan)
• Cost: ≈ $300/month
• Goal: Learn to run n8n on a high-availability Postgres cluster. Automatic failover means if one node drops, another takes over without breaking automations.
• Tip: Schedule a one-month “production dress rehearsal.” Deploy your full workflow, simulate failures, and document the recovery steps for future clients.

2. Explore real-time streaming

• Services: Aiven for Apache Kafka + Apache Flink (Startup plans)
• Cost: ≈ $290/month per service
• Goal: Turn n8n into an event-driven platform. Kafka handles ingestion; Flink processes streams in real time before they land in Postgres.
• Tip: Run the stack for a focused sprint (one to two weeks). Trigger n8n workflows that publish to Kafka, transform with Flink, and persist results. Tag your project #Kafka #Flink so you remember the experiment.

3. Build unified observability

• Services: Aiven for OpenSearch + Grafana
• Cost: ≈ $290/month for OpenSearch; Grafana adds a lightweight layer for visualization.
• Goal: Centralize n8n execution logs, latency metrics, and workflow outcomes in a single dashboard.
• Tip: Pipe n8n logs into OpenSearch, plug Grafana into the cluster, and build dashboards for stakeholders. This setup is a client-ready monitoring solution. Tag it #OpenSearch #Grafana in your notes.

4. Test big data analytics speed

• Service: Aiven for ClickHouse
• Goal: Benchmark large-volume analytics. Use n8n to ingest data and run columnar queries that would choke a traditional OLTP database.
• Tip: Stage a data warehouse experiment maybe a marketing analytics dataset or IoT stream and document how quickly ClickHouse responds.

5. Experiment with high throughput NoSQL

• Service: Aiven for Apache Cassandra
• Goal: Understand wide column storage for global, high-write workloads.
• Tip: Push n8n to write high-speed events (think metric ingestion or device logs). Evaluate how Cassandra handles scaling different access patterns. Tag it #Cassandra for your personal knowledge base.

Credit-saving strategy

• Remember the clock. Trial credits expire after 30 days, so map out experiments in advance.
• Build pipelines locally first. Stage configurations on the free Postgres service, then upgrade when you’re ready to run a fully managed stack.
• Delete aggressively. Tear down Kafka, Flink, OpenSearch, or ClickHouse clusters the minute your test is finished to stop the billing counter.

Combine services for a pro-grade pipeline

Try stitching together an end-to-end workflow:

1. n8n receives a webhook trigger.
2. n8n publishes events to Kafka.
3. Flink transforms the stream in real time.
4. Raw events land in Cassandra; logs flow into OpenSearch.
5. n8n consumes the processed data for follow-up automation.
6. Grafana visualizes system health and business metrics.

That’s the kind of multi-service architecture teams pay real money for and you can rehearse it with trial credits.

Grab extra runway

• Bonus $100 credit: Sign up via this referral link to pad your experimentation budget.
• Understand the free plan: Bookmark the Aiven free plan docs so you know exactly what carries over once the trial ends.

Final thoughts

Neon and Supabase are excellent for serverless Postgres, but Aiven gives you a full menu of managed services ready to plug into complex automations. Pair the perpetual free Postgres instance with targeted $300 experiments, and you’ll walk away with practical experience running high-availability databases, streaming pipelines, observability stacks, and NoSQL deployments all without touching on-prem hardware.

So, what will you build this month?