An InstantDB alternative for apps leaving Instant Cloud
On August 22, 2026 the Instant team announced they are joining OpenAI and winding the hosted product down: new signups are closed, and every Instant Cloud app shuts down August 31, 2027. Scribase runs on Postgres and its importer moves a whole Instant app over with ids kept, so links and logins keep working.
Last checked October 16, 2026.
What is actually shutting down, and when
Instant (InstantDB), a Y Combinator company, announced on August 22, 2026 that its team is joining OpenAI. The hosted product, Instant Cloud, is winding down as part of that move; the open-source Instant engine itself is not going away.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 2026-08-22 | Announcement; new signups to Instant Cloud close immediately |
| 2026-07-31 | Any subscription started after this date is fully refunded |
| 2027-08-31 | Every Instant Cloud app shuts down |
| 2028-08-31 | Backups are no longer available after this date |
Why teams are moving to plain Postgres
Instant apps are small, fast-moving projects: a schema of namespaces and links, a handful of users, and InstaQL queries in the client. That shape moves cleanly onto Postgres, where the same ids keep working, SQL replaces InstaQL for anything reporting or admin-side needs, and the project is not tied to a single vendor's roadmap again.
Scribase keeps the parts that made Instant pleasant to build on: one hosted project with auth, storage and realtime already wired in, reachable from a serverless function or an agent with no servers to run.
How InstantDB concepts map to Scribase
| InstantDB | Scribase |
|---|---|
| Namespaces | Postgres tables with a uuid primary key and a jsonb data column holding every attribute |
| Links | Arrays of linked ids inside data, so data->'owner' joins back to the linked table |
| $users | Auth users with the same id and email, ready for email-code and magic-link sign-in |
| $files | Storage objects at the same path in a private bucket, checked with SHA-256 |
| Permission rules | Row level security policies written in SQL |
| InstaQL / subscriptions | SQL queries plus Realtime postgres_changes, broadcast and presence |
| Instant React / client SDKs | supabase-js and the Swift, Kotlin, Flutter and Python clients |
What the importer brings over
- Every namespace, with entity ids preserved so every link and stored reference still resolves.
- Every $users row with the same id and email, marked confirmed for email-code and magic-link sign-in; Instant never stored passwords, so nobody resets one.
- Every $files object, verified with a SHA-256 check per file.
- A verification report comparing row counts and checksums for every table before you point traffic at it.
What you rewrite by hand
- Instant permission rules are not SQL. Imported tables start with row level security on and no policies; port each rule to an RLS policy.
- If you used Instant OAuth, enable the same providers on Scribase; returning users are linked by email on their first sign-in.
- InstaQL subscriptions become Postgres changes over Scribase Realtime, subscribed with the JavaScript client.
What does not work yet
We publish the gaps instead of hiding them. As of the last check:
- Phone and SMS one-time codes: the allow list works, the managed SMS sender is not switched on yet.
- Direct Postgres connections from the internet (ports 5432 and 6543, for psql or pg_restore): not open yet. Migrations, the console SQL editor and the HTTP serverless driver work today.
- Read replicas and foreign data wrappers to remote servers: built, not yet proven on the hosted service.
Questions people ask
Do I have until August 2027 to move?
Instant's own notice gives until August 31, 2027 before apps shut down, with backups kept a further year until August 31, 2028. New signups are already closed, so any app still being built should move sooner rather than later.
Do my users have to sign in again from scratch?
No. The importer copies $users with the same id and email. Instant never stored passwords, so there is nothing to reset; users sign in by email code or magic link as before.
Is Scribase built by the Instant team or affiliated with OpenAI?
No. Scribase is a separate company and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Instant, OpenAI or Google. This page only describes how to move data off Instant Cloud.
How much does it cost?
$25 a month per project, flat, with branches and preview environments included.