A savior for front-end engineers?
“Building the backend is time-consuming, making it difficult to prototype the app.” “Supabase” is rapidly gaining support among developers who have such concerns in recent years. It is often talked about as an alternative to Firebase, but what exactly is the difference?
We have summarized frequently asked questions in Q&A format.
Q1: What is Supabase in one word?
A: It is an open source “BaaS (Backend as a Service)”. Based on PostgreSQL, it is surprisingly easy to incorporate the complete set of functions required for a backend, such as a database, authentication function, storage, and real-time listener, into your project.
Q2: What is the difference from existing services (Firebase, etc.)?
A: The biggest difference is that we use a relational database (RDB). NoSQL such as Firebase’s Firestore is useful, but if you want to correlate complex data or perform advanced aggregation using SQL, Supabase, which is based on PostgreSQL, will be a very powerful ally.
Q3: What kind of projects is it suitable for?
A: Ideal for personal development and startup MVP development. It is particularly compatible with modern front-end frameworks such as React and Next.js, and by simply loading the SDK, data reading and writing and user authentication can be completed with a few lines of code.
What I noticed after actually implementing it
I’ve used Supabase on several projects myself, and I’ve been impressed by how intuitive the dashboard is. You can create a table directly from your browser, specify column data types, and even set up security rules called Row Level Security (RLS).
The development speed has more than doubled since the front end can directly access the database securely without having to create an API endpoint.
Be careful here
However, this does not completely eliminate the need for backend knowledge. If you make a mistake in database design (normalization, etc.), it will be difficult to maintain data integrity later, and if you make a mistake in RLS settings, there is a risk of information leakage. You will need to at least learn the basics of SQL and the design philosophy of relational databases.
Future prospects
Supabase is still under active development, and new features such as Edge Functions (serverless functions) are being added one after another. There is no doubt that it will evolve not only as a “replacement for a database” but also as a full-stack application platform.
If you haven’t tried it yet, please take a few hours over the weekend and try out the tutorial. You’ll definitely fall in love with its comfortable development experience.