is supabase any good

share

Summary of results

GPT-4o
Warning: quote links might not work while streaming
1.

Supabase[1] is a popular, open-source[2], and very modern alternative with a great free tier!

[1] https://supabase.com/

[2] https://github.com/supabase/supabase

3.

I would recommend supabase, used it in my side projects, couldn't be happier.

4.

I think the most important reason is that supabase is a good product. Marketing is just a plus.

10.

supabase is a good alternative

17.

Can you speak more about the issues with Supabase you describe?

18.

AFAIK I have not run supabase in my own infra but they seem to allow you to do so and are quite good citizens publishing all their built tools on top of pg or whatever and as far as I remember with sane licenses.

I love supabase, neon are new-ish but a great alterantive for hosted serverless databases (they also did a great staging-db-for-pr's) when launched that we integrated at work quite soon while on beta and saved a lot of headaches of introducing new features that touched database before

19.

(supabase ceo)

Supabase gives you a full Postgres database, we position ourselves as a Firebase alternative because we offer a few other bells-and-whistles. The database is just postgres[0] and so it has more compatibility than bit.io offered[1]

[0] https://github.com/supabase/postgres

[1] bit.io compatability: https://docs.bit.io/docs/supported-sql

20.

how does directus compare to supabase? anyone compare the two..

21.

you might find Supabase[0] is closer to what you need. I'd recommend giving them a look, that is, if MySQL compat isn't a requirement of course, since Supabase is all PostgresSQL.

disclosure: not a employee or investor in Supabase, but I sure am a fan.

[0]: https://supabase.com/

22.

I’m curious why Supabase didn’t suit your needs, especially since you’re looking for Postgres support?

(Disclosure: supabase ceo)

24.

Check out Supabase, you can have your cake and eat it too.

26.

I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding what supabase is.

I thought it was a Postgres database that gave you a PostgREST HTTP API interface.

If that's the case... what does the javascript library do?

28.

Supabase and Directus are my go-to BaaS offerings. In terms of developing server side code(custom backend logic) Directus is still better than supabase. Also the Admin Interface is more capable. However in terms of performance supabase is of course way better. Lucky that we have such good options nowadays.

29.

Supabase user here. Ive been happy with Supabase. It feels like the recent launches have been underwhelming.

I am really pumped for Neon and think they are doing something more differentiated.

31.

Yeah, supabase is great. I think if they could get the auth story a little more polished (it "works", but its definitely weak/buggy in some aspects compared to alternatives, and hard to use), and made some advanced use cases with Prisma easier to do (or better documented) since that's such a common pairing, they'd be even easier to recommend.

Right now I still use Supabase because I think they're a solid "Postgresql as a service" offering, but they're just SO CLOSE to being so much more than that. They have all the pieces, they just don't all work quite the way folks expect. They'll get there, I'm sure.

32.

I'm a big fan of Supabase. It's a SAAS but you can self-host the open-source stack if you want, and their big goal is to have an array of out-of-the-box services (auth, realtime push, etc) built on tight integration with a Postgres database.

33.

Supabase is a frontend and API wrapper around a normal Postgres instance. It does nothing to the database itself and is not an alternative to AlloyDB.

35.

Supabase is great and I’ve used it for a number of projects over the years both with a backend alongside it or direct from the client with RLS.

There are some weird edges (well really just faff) around auth with the JS library but if nothing else they are by far the cheapest hosted SQL offering I can find so any faff you don’t want to deal with there’s an excellent database right there to allow you to roll your own (assuming you have a backend server alongside it)

36.

Please explain to me what's Supabase, but make it rhyme.

Supabase is a great place,

For hosting your database.

It's open source and free,

So you can use it with glee.

It's simple to get started,

No infrastructure to be charted.

It's a hosted platform,

So you can use it with no qualm.

37.

I'd say Supabase is great at spinning up CRUD apps. If anything, this article could be summarized as "Because Val Town is much more than a CRUD app, they had a harder time with Supabase than the average."

39.

Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative. We're building the _features_ of Firebase using open source tools: Postgres Database, Authentication, auto-generated APIs (PostgREST), Realtime subscriptions, and File Storage.

more details here: https://supabase.com/docs/architecture

40.

Supabase has arguably a better alternative, which uses logical replication and can be used outside of Supabase.

https://github.com/supabase/realtime

41.

Supabase has certainly been on my radar and is cool... but I haven't seen any indication that it's even remotely as popular as "this generation's database".

Does anyone have any opposing data points?

42.

Supabase is very heavy and inflexible. I just asked whoever mention supabase to try Django and they fall in love. Only thing Django miss is realtime.

43.

for what it's worth i use supabase because it's the fastest way to get from 0-1 for app development. most backend stuff for getting off the ground is not very interesting so getting the graphql api, oauth integration, db migrations, some user authorization story for free is what i'm looking for from supabase.

44.

The business model of supabase is to market themselves as an open source company but in practice, no one in their right mind will try to self host for production. (you know, some subtle missing documentation or some subtle bugs or some subtle missing important features). So they get the praise for being open source but in fact, it is never practical. It is just marketing scheme.

45.

When did supabase start supporting analytical worklods?

46.

I'm very invested in Supabase. When I saw the title I thought this was going to be about extending self-hosted Supabase in a similar way as you can do in PocketBase[1] with go.

Still, interesting to read about how others use it.

[1]: https://pocketbase.io

47.

Supabase is very resource intensive. Django+drf+ spectacular+filters+jwt gives you all the perks of supabase with

- much easier syntax

- much lighter weight

- alot higher productivity

- UI auto generation

48.

While you can use Supabase as simply a Postgres provider, the more interesting comparison IMO is to other backend-as-a-service providers. Supabase used to call themselves a “Firebase alternative” but at this point they have surpassed Firebase in almost every way, in my view.

49.

While supabase could be considered a "technology" it's really more or less fancy wrappers around a postgres database. And even then, the wrappers it uses are rather well known:

- gotrue for auth, 3.2K GitHub stars

- postgREST to expost postgres as REST API, 19.8K GitHub stars

- kong as API gateway, 33.7K GitHub stars

50.

Supabase Auth: We do much more than them — e-mails, organizations, permissions & RBAC, user dashboard, impersonation are some of the features we have. (I like Supabase a lot as a DB — we're working on some fancy connectors to use Stack Auth alongside Supabase RLS, so you can get the best of both worlds.)

Supertokens, Ory: Developer-friendliness and integrations, mostly (both of these target enterprise customers). Also, Supertokens is open-core. I'd say we're to Supertokens/Ory what Clerk is to Auth0.

51.

Supabase is becoming quite impressive, I think the main thing missing is a native iOS/Android sdk.

52.

That sounds about right from my understanding. Supabase was made as an alternative to firebase, acting as a data layer with a lot of features simplifying application development.

Planet Base feels like Snowflake, or some aspects of fly.io, or timescale's managed cloud offering; their focus is on the core database tech and delivering that in a scalable manner.

53.

Supabase developer here. That's entirely correct. But in addition to an API wrapper around Postgres, Supabase also offers Storage, Auth, and Edge Functions as a complete baas -- it's not just a database backend.

54.

How does this compare to Supabase? Is this easily self hostable? I'm seeing lots of movement in this space and it's getting harder to keep track.

55.

quick aside note:

i heard great things about supabase and wanted to use it for auth. I wanted to maintain my own db, user tables etc.

but using supabase for auth, this means if need to play w RLS but i had a very simple db design and didn't want to include rls yet. supabase won't let me do it afaik.

so i switched to using ory/kratos ultimately.

also q, how heavily are we dependent on supabase ecosystem if all we want is the db?

57.

Do you understand the underlying technologies of Supabase and these other frameworks? Just curious.

And how are you liking supabase as opposed to other quick start solutions?

58.

Supabase uses PostgREST as an API server on top of you Postgres database:

https://supabase.com/docs/architecture

We are a sponsor and we employ the maintainer of PostgREST

59.

If all you care about is the database, then yes there's a good chance that Neon will greatly outperform. But Supabase is much more than that since it includes authentication, functions, file storage, and their realtime feature. For me, the appeal is that you can get all those features with a postgres database. The nice thing is that you can mix supabase features, so if all you care about is authn, you can still use it with neon.

60.

I’d add [supabase](https://supabase.com/) to the list as well. They have some compelling hosted Postgres options.

61.

I use supabase as our backend for https://sudopad.com and recently crossed 1000 shared links. Has been pretty stable for me. The only thing I am waiting for is the ability to call a subabase function on db change.

62.

I think supabase is open source such that you can (and many customers do) self host with no additional cost and with complete control.

63.

https://supabase.com/

"Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative. Start your project with a Postgres database, Authentication, instant APIs, Edge Functions, Realtime subscriptions, and Storage."

Budibase is interesting too.

People seem to like Appwrite as well.

65.

Perfect reply from Supabase on Firebase's announcement: https://twitter.com/supabase/status/1790503399521230992

"does that make firebase a supabase alternative now??"

66.

We are currently evaluating self hosting supabase auth.

67.

Author here! I think the comparison between Convex and Supabase is quite similar to Convex vs. Firebase! Supabase also encourages developers to load individual SQL queries from the client, supports edge functions without having a reactivity story for them, etc. Superbase is designed to be a Firebase alternative and appears to be taking most of their high-level approach.

68.

I just started a small hobby project and selected supabase for my db provider. Anyone with experience in both Supa and PlanetScale care to comment about the differences?

To me, it looks like supabase is designed to take full advantage of postgres features. plpgsql triggers + RLS + clientside auth + streaming changes to subscribers (including via web hooks) are my favorite features. (They also have js edge functions, but I use lambda instead b/c I prefer python)

Supabase feels like the scrappy company with amazing focus, akin to an early MailChimp (circa 2007). PlanetBase feels more like early Snowflake - massive scale, focus on performance, can match anything feature-by-feature. One is a master of their craft, the other is a gorilla at scale.

Curious what others think. I haven't used PlanetBase extensively so don't have much to go on except their marketing.


Terms & Privacy Policy | This site is not affiliated with or sponsored by Hacker News or Y Combinator
Built by @jnnnthnn