# Add-ons Overview

> Managed services you attach to apps — what they are, how to pick, and how attachment works.

Add-ons are managed services you attach to apps. They're how you give an app a database, a cache, a stream, object storage, or a monitoring stack — without running any of it yourself.

## What an add-on does

When you attach an add-on, Watasu:

1. provisions the underlying service (creates the database, the bucket, the broker)
2. injects connection details into the app as config vars (`DATABASE_URL`, `REDIS_URL`, S3 credentials)
3. triggers a release so your app picks up the new environment

From there your app talks to the add-on like it would any other service. There's no Watasu-specific SDK to import.

## Team-owned, app-attached

Add-ons live at the **team** level. They're attached to apps. That separation is deliberate:

* one add-on can be attached to multiple apps (with [aliases](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/overview.md#aliases) to distinguish them)
* destroying an app doesn't destroy its add-ons
* backups, restores, and promotions happen at the add-on level, not the app level

## Pick the right service

| Service                                                           | Use it for                                                                   |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [PostgreSQL](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/postgresql.md)         | Transactional application data, relational queries, migrations               |
| [Valkey](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/valkey.md)                 | Cache, sessions, rate limiting, ephemeral coordination, queue speed paths    |
| [ClickHouse](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/clickhouse.md)         | Analytics, event data, large append-heavy datasets, dashboard queries        |
| [Qdrant](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/qdrant.md)                 | Native vector, sparse, and hybrid search with multi-zone Premium replication |
| [Redpanda](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/redpanda.md)             | Durable event streams, Kafka-style producer/consumer pipelines               |
| [Object Storage](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/object-storage.md) | User uploads, static assets, exports, archives — anything S3-shaped          |
| Monitoring (logs, metrics, traces, Grafana)                       | See [Observability](https://docs.watasu.io/observability/overview.md)        |

If you need transactional storage and you're not sure, start with PostgreSQL. It's the right default for almost every web app.

## Common operations

### Create and attach to an app

```bash
watasu addons:create postgresql --app my-app
```

You can pass a plan slug to pick a specific tier:

```bash
watasu addons:create postgresql:standard-0 --app my-app
```

Plans differ on size, durability, replication, and whether scheduled backups are included. See [Add-on Plans](https://docs.watasu.io/reference/addon-plans.md).

### Attach an existing add-on

```bash
watasu addons:attach team-cache --app my-app
```

### Aliases

When an app needs more than one of the same service (e.g. primary + reporting database):

```bash
watasu addons:attach reporting-db --app my-app --as REPORTING
```

Watasu exports alias-prefixed env vars (e.g. `REPORTING_DATABASE_URL`) so your app can distinguish them.

### List and inspect

```bash
watasu addons --app my-app          # everything attached to an app
watasu addons:info my-database      # plan, status, connection metadata
```

### Wait for ready

Provisioning isn't instant. Block until the add-on is ready before depending on it:

```bash
watasu addons:wait my-database
```

### Destroy

```bash
watasu addons:destroy my-database
```

This is destructive. For databases, take a backup first.

## Backups, restores, promotions

PostgreSQL, Valkey, and ClickHouse all support a backup/restore flow. The [Backups and Restores](https://docs.watasu.io/workflows/backups-and-restores.md) workflow page walks through it end-to-end.

Object Storage and Redpanda are durable by design and don't ship with a tenant-facing backup product — see their individual pages for what their durability model actually is.

[View this page on the web](https://docs.watasu.io/addons/overview/)