Managed service
A managed service is a cloud-hosted offering where the provider runs the infrastructure — Supabase, Pinecone, n8n Cloud, Anthropic API — and the user pays for usage rather than operating the underlying systems.
Managed services dominate AI stack adoption in 2026 because the alternative — self-hosting Postgres, vector databases, LLM inference, agent orchestration — burns engineering time most teams would rather spend on product. Trade-offs: managed services lock you in (data migration is real work), cost climbs at scale, and some features lag the self-host equivalent. For most early-stage products and teams without dedicated infrastructure engineers, managed services win on TCO. For scale-heavy production and regulated industries, self-host increasingly competes.
When to use managed service
- Early-stage products without dedicated infra engineers.
- Cost-tolerant scale where managed wins on engineering time.
Common mistakes
- Locking in deeply before understanding migration cost.
- Choosing managed for compliance-heavy work where data residency matters.
FAQ
What is managed service?
A managed service is a cloud-hosted offering where the provider runs the infrastructure — Supabase, Pinecone, n8n Cloud, Anthropic API — and the user pays for usage rather than operating the underlying systems.
When should I use managed service?
Early-stage products without dedicated infra engineers. Cost-tolerant scale where managed wins on engineering time.
What are the most common mistakes with managed service?
Locking in deeply before understanding migration cost. Choosing managed for compliance-heavy work where data residency matters.
Related terms
- Serverless database — A serverless database scales compute and storage independently and bills based on actual use — no fixed instance provisioning — typical of Neon, PlanetScale, Supabase, Convex in 2026.
- Self-hosted LLM — A self-hosted LLM runs entirely on infrastructure you control — your GPUs, your servers, your data residency — versus calling a cloud API.
Last updated: 2026-06-01. Raw markdown: https://promtable.com/glossary/managed-service.md.