Facts read November 7, 2026
Cached polling (no realtime service) vs Supabase Realtime
Supabase Realtime is Cuely's default realtime pick when your description doesn't favor either one: live updates from the same vendor as your database, with no extra bill on the free plan. Pick Cached polling (no realtime service) if you care most about viral traffic spikes.
Side by side
| Fact | Cached polling (no realtime service) | Supabase Realtime |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Clients re-fetch one results endpoint every few seconds, and the host caches its answer so every player shares it. | Broadcast, presence and database change streams, part of a Supabase project. |
| Free plan | No service to sign up for. On Vercel, a function response with Cache-Control: s-maxage is served from the CDN, and a cached response doesn't run the function; on Cloudflare Workers, cache the answer with the Cache API, and each poll is a Worker request. | Free plan: 200 concurrent peak connections and 2 million messages per month. |
| Paid from | Not stated | Supabase Pro: from $25/month. |
| At 1,000 users | $0/month | $0/month |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Live vote percentages and leaderboards; Traffic that spikes when something is shared; Staying on one bill | Apps already on Supabase; Live updates from database changes; Chat and presence |
| Watch out | Players see numbers up to the cache time old (a few seconds); use a push service for chat, cursors or fast multiplayer. | Shared state and conflict handling for collaborative editing are yours to build. |
Where they differ
The published scores, from −3 to +3, that decide which one Cuely picks for each need.
| Need | Cached polling (no realtime service) | Supabase Realtime |
|---|---|---|
| traffic comes in viral spikes | +3 Every player reads the same cached answer, so a viral day adds cheap cached requests, not connections or messages. | −2 Free allows 200 concurrent connections and 100 messages a second; a viral day passes that in minutes. |
| realtime features | −1 Updates every few seconds rather than instantly: fine for crowd numbers, not for presence, chat or shared editing. | +2 Broadcast, presence and Postgres change streams. |
| fewer vendors | 0 No particular strength here. | +3 Comes with the Supabase database and auth. |
| keep costs as low as possible | +2 No extra vendor or bill. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| votes, scores, leaderboards or streaks (many writes to the same numbers) | +2 Fits tallies and leaderboards that only need to be a few seconds fresh. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| prefers open source or self-hosting | 0 No particular strength here. | +2 Open source and self-hostable with the rest of Supabase. |
| native iOS or Android app | 0 No particular strength here. | +1 Works from the same Supabase client in React Native. |
Sources: Cached polling (no realtime service) pricing (read November 9, 2026), Supabase Realtime pricing (read November 7, 2026). No vendor pays for placement.