Supabase gives each project a full Postgres database and builds application backend services around it: authentication, auto-generated APIs, realtime subscriptions, functions, file storage, and a vector embeddings toolkit, all managed from one dashboard. It sets out to offer a Firebase-like developer experience from open-source components, without being a one-to-one copy of Firebase. Projects run on the hosted platform or can be self-hosted and developed locally.
Each service is a separate open-source component. PostgREST turns the database into a REST API, pg_graphql exposes a GraphQL API, GoTrue handles JWT-based sign-ups, logins, and sessions, an Elixir Realtime server broadcasts Postgres inserts, updates, and deletes over websockets, Storage manages files in S3 with permissions held in Postgres, and postgres-meta exposes a REST API for managing tables and roles. Row Level Security in Postgres governs data access across these APIs.
Client libraries are modular, with one sub-library per backend service bundled into a single client. Official clients cover JavaScript and TypeScript, Flutter, Swift, and Python, and community clients cover C#, Go, Java, Kotlin, and other languages. For AI applications, the vector toolkit stores, indexes, and searches embeddings inside the same database.
Features
- Postgres database: every project is a dedicated Postgres instance with a table editor, SQL editor, and RLS policy management
- Authentication: user sign-ups and logins with JWT sessions, securing data through Row Level Security
- Auto-generated APIs: REST through PostgREST and GraphQL through pg_graphql, generated from the database schema
- Realtime: websocket subscriptions to database changes, built on Postgres replication
- Functions: database functions plus Edge Functions for custom server-side code without managing servers
- File storage: store, organize, and serve large files such as images and videos, with Postgres-held permissions
- Vector toolkit: store, index, and search vector embeddings for AI applications
- Client libraries: official JavaScript, Flutter, Swift, and Python clients, with community clients for C#, Go, Java, Kotlin, and more
- Hosted or self-hosted: use the hosted platform with no install, or self-host and develop locally
