Managed Postgres, Canadian-owned and hosted in Montreal.
Every Canner project gets a real Postgres database, backed up and restorable, on servers in Quebec owned by a Canadian company with no US affiliate. Add a dedicated instance for CA$9 a month and you get point-in-time recovery, extensions, replication and monitoring.
What you get on every plan
Postgres is included from the free Starter plan up. You choose Postgres 17 or 18 when you create a database. Each project gets its own isolated database and role, Starter has one database per project and paid plans can add several, and DATABASE_URL is injected into your app for you.
- Scheduled backups with a retention you set, plus manual backups. Backups are encrypted at rest with a key per backup; deleting a backup destroys its key.
- Restore into a new database, or in place (a snapshot is taken first). “Inspect first” restores into a temporary database and shows a diff against the live one.
- Backup verification, and email alerts for a failed or unverified backup and when storage reaches 80, 95 and 100%.
- Copies of your backups to up to five S3-compatible buckets you own, chosen per database.
- Named read-only and read-write roles. External access is TLS-only with an IP allowlist, at
db.canner.ca:5432. - Export with
pg_dump, import, migrate in from any public Postgres server, migrate out, and copy between databases. - Scheduled SQL, metrics, a dashboard, a CLI (
canner db …), a REST API and MCP tools for AI agents.
The dedicated instance: CA$9 a month per project
A dedicated instance is your project’s own Postgres server process, with its own data directory and its own memory limit, and 0.5 GB of guaranteed RAM included. It is an add-on on any paid plan, priced per project. It unlocks the features that need a server of your own:
- Point-in-time recovery: recover to any moment in a window you choose, 1 to 35 days, into a new database.
- Extensions: pgvector, PostGIS, pg_trgm, pg_cron, hstore and others (14 in the catalog).
postgres_fdw,dblinkandfile_fdware not offered, on purpose. - Workload presets, statement and lock timeouts, and a maintenance window you choose.
- Logical replication out, to subscribers you run. The publisher role is limited to one database, each slot has a WAL cap, and you get alerts.
- Follow an external Postgres server live for a migration with almost no downtime. It is applied with your table owner’s rights, never as a superuser.
- An AES-256 encrypted recovery archive, and an optional encrypted off-site copy of it in your own bucket. Canner keeps the key, so the bucket alone cannot be read.
- Monitoring: query insights, slow queries and the Postgres log.
How the pricing works
There is no separate database bill. Storage is one pool per organization, shared by apps, builds, databases, backups, the recovery archive, object storage and the Data Workshop. Starter has 5 GB, Live (CA$9 a month) 25 GB and Studio (CA$149 a month) 100 GB. More storage comes in 50 GB blocks at CA$5 a month. New uploads and backups stop at 100%. Database writes lock only when you are 10% over the limit, and unlock again below 90%.
Memory is where a database plan usually gets expensive, so we keep it plain. There are two add-ons:
- App RAM, CA$4 per GB per month. It is pooled: when the server is busy your workload is slowed, never cut off.
- Dedicated RAM, CA$19 per GB per month. It is guaranteed and never oversold, and it is shared between a project’s app and its dedicated Postgres.
- For Postgres and for AI workloads, Dedicated RAM is the safer choice, because it is guaranteed. The guide App RAM or Dedicated RAM explains how to choose.
Canner vs database vendors
A compact look at the six most common alternatives, taken from each vendor’s own pages. Canner is not a database-only product: you get Postgres together with the app platform. Where a vendor is stronger, the individual comparison pages say so.
| Provider | Entry price as listed | Point-in-time recovery | Canadian region | Ownership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canner | Postgres free on Starter; dedicated instance CA$9/mo per project | 1–35 days, on the dedicated instance | Montreal, the only region | Canadian-owned, no US affiliate |
| Supabase † † † | Pro listed at $25/month (8 GB disk included) | Paid add-on, listed at about $100/month for 7 days; needs at least Small compute | Yes: Canada (Central), AWS ca-central-1 | We have not verified ownership details; ask them |
| Neon † † † | Free $0; Launch usage-based ($0.106 per CU-hour, $0.35 per GB-month), no monthly minimum | Restore window 6 hours on Free, up to 7 days on Launch, up to 30 days on Scale; history billed at $0.20 per GB-month | No Canadian region | Databricks agreed to acquire Neon (announced May 2025) |
| Crunchy Bridge † † † | Hobby-0 listed at $9/month; “isn’t intended for production” | Included: 10 days, any minute in the window | Yes: Canada Central (Montréal) on AWS | Owned by Snowflake |
| PlanetScale † † † † | PS-5 listed at $5/month, non-HA (512 MiB RAM) | Supported through WAL; backups every 12 hours, 2 days included | Yes: AWS ca-central-1 (Montreal) | Headquartered in San Francisco |
| Amazon RDS † † † | db.t4g.micro single-AZ listed at US$0.018/hour in Montreal, plus storage | Included within the 0–35 day retention; restore creates a new instance | Yes: Montreal (ca-central-1) | US-incorporated; the Government of Canada’s own guidance says data location does not remove that exposure |
| DigitalOcean † † † † | Listed at US$15.15/month (1 GiB RAM, 1 vCPU) | Last 7 days | Yes: Toronto (TOR1) | DigitalOcean, LLC, a US company (Colorado) |
† Competitor details come from each vendor’s own published pages on the dates shown; prices and plans change, so check the vendor before you decide. Supabase (2026-09-26) · Supabase (2026-09-26) · Supabase (2026-09-26) · Neon (2026-09-26) · Neon (2026-09-26) · Neon (2026-09-26) · Crunchy Bridge (2026-09-26) · Crunchy Bridge (2026-09-26) · Crunchy Bridge (2026-09-26) · PlanetScale (2026-09-26) · PlanetScale (2026-09-26) · PlanetScale (2026-09-26) · PlanetScale (2026-09-26) · Amazon RDS (2026-09-26) · Amazon RDS (2026-09-26) · Amazon RDS (2026-09-26) · DigitalOcean (2026-09-26) · DigitalOcean (2026-09-26) · DigitalOcean (2026-09-26) · DigitalOcean (2026-09-26)
Honest limits
Canner Postgres suits apps that want a solid managed database next to their code. It does not try to be everything. Before you choose it, know what it does not do:
- No high availability and no automatic failover. Canner runs in one region on one provider, in Montreal. Your protection against losing a server is backups, the recovery archive and the off-site copies you set up.
- One region. There is no multi-region option.
- Point-in-time recovery restores into a new database. There is no in-place restore.
- No read replicas, no Postgres branching, no scale-to-zero, and no database-only product without the app platform.
How to start
Create a project and you already have a database. From the CLI, you can turn on the dedicated instance with point-in-time recovery, pull in an existing database, and set up backups:
# Create a dedicated Postgres 18 instance with point-in-time recovery
canner db instance create --pg 18 --pitr
# Stream a database in from any public Postgres server
canner db migrate-in --from postgres://user:pass@source.example.com:5432/appdb
# Choose how often backups run and how long they are kept
canner db backup-policy appdb --enable --every 24 --keep 7
# List the extensions you can install
canner db extensions appdbQuestions
Is my data really out of reach of the US CLOUD Act?
Canner is Canadian-owned with no US affiliate, and hosts only in Montreal, Quebec, so it is not subject to the US CLOUD Act. Hosting in Canada is not enough by itself: the Government of Canada’s own guidance says a US-law organization can be compelled “regardless of the data’s location”. That is why ownership matters as much as region. See how Canner handles sovereignty.
How do backups work, and what do they cost?
Backups are scheduled with a retention you set, or taken by hand, on every plan (Starter backs up at most once a day; paid plans can go down to hourly). They are encrypted at rest, verified, and you get an alert if one fails. Backups count toward your storage pool and nothing else: there is no separate backup fee. You can also copy them to up to five buckets you own.
What is point-in-time recovery, and do I need it?
Backups are snapshots taken on a schedule. Point-in-time recovery keeps every change in between, so you can go back to a moment such as five minutes before a bad migration. It needs the dedicated instance (CA$9 a month per project). It always restores into a new database, so you can look before you copy anything over. See the full guide.
Which extensions can I use?
On the dedicated instance: pgvector, PostGIS, pg_trgm, pg_cron, hstore and others, 14 in the catalog. Extensions that can reach other servers or read the host’s files, such as postgres_fdw, dblink and file_fdw, are not offered.
Can I migrate my existing database in?
Yes. canner db migrate-in streams a database from any public Postgres server, on every plan. If you need almost no downtime, the dedicated instance can follow your old server live until you cut over. See the migration guide.
How much will it cost me?
Postgres is free on Starter within its 5 GB pool. A dedicated instance is CA$9 a month per project on any paid plan. Storage beyond your plan’s pool is CA$5 a month per 50 GB. Extra memory is CA$4 per GB for App RAM or CA$19 per GB for Dedicated RAM. Postgres and AI workloads are safer on Dedicated RAM, because it is guaranteed. App RAM can be slowed when the server is busy. See pricing.
Do you charge egress fees?
There is no per-GB egress charge on database traffic.
What is not offered?
Automatic failover and high availability, read replicas, multi-region, in-place point-in-time restore, Postgres branching, scale-to-zero, and a database-only product without the app platform. We say so plainly so you can rule us out early if you need one of them.
Start with a free Postgres database.
Starter is permanent and needs no card. Add the dedicated instance when you need recovery to the minute, extensions or replication.