Backups vs. replication: what's the difference?
Read replicas, point-in-time recovery, and backups all sound similar. They solve very different problems.
Replication protects against infrastructure failure
A read replica is a live copy of your database, updated in near real-time. It's great for scaling reads and for surviving hardware issues. But if you delete a table on the primary, the replica will happily delete it too. Replication is not a backup.
Point-in-time recovery protects a short window
PITR lets you rewind your database to a specific second in the recent past. It's powerful, but usually limited to the last few days and often gated behind higher-tier plans.
Backups protect you from yourself
A backup is a snapshot frozen in time. It doesn't move, doesn't sync, and doesn't care what happens on production afterwards. That's exactly why it's the last line of defense against human error, bugs, and bad migrations.
You want both
If you can afford it, use replication and PITR for uptime, plus daily backups for disaster recovery. For most small and medium projects, a solid daily backup routine is the highest-leverage thing you can do.