Supabase
Backend & DatabasesA Postgres-based backend platform that bundles a database, auth, auto-generated APIs, storage, realtime and edge functions, available hosted or self-hosted.
Open-source alternative to:
What the free edition leaves out
The free edition is genuinely usable, but some team or enterprise features need a paid plan. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Not confirmed | The SAML docs describe hosted projects (dashboard SSO on Team and Enterprise, project SAML on Pro and above); self-hosting is not mentioned. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Not confirmed | Access-control roles are documented for the hosted platform; the self-hosting docs say Studio manages a single project. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Not confirmed | Platform audit logs are listed on the hosted plans; self-hosting is not described. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Not confirmed | Self-hosted Supabase runs as a single project and Studio has no multiple organizations or projects. Whether it limits dashboard team members is not stated. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | The self-hosting guide says managed backups and point-in-time recovery are not available when self-hosting; you manage backups yourself. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Free | The self-hosted Docker stack includes the REST service (PostgREST). The self-hosting page says the Management API is not available when self-hosting. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Paid | The pricing page lists priority email support and SLAs on the Team plan and uptime SLAs on Enterprise. The self-hosting page says self-hosted Supabase is community-supported. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Developers who want a Postgres-backed app backend with auth, storage and realtime, and who may later move from the hosted service to their own servers.
Why choose it over Firebase
The repository is Apache-2.0 and the data lives in a normal Postgres database, so you are not locked into a proprietary document store. The docs say self-hosted Supabase does not phone home or collect telemetry. A large part of the stack can run on your own server.
Where it falls short
The self-hosting docs list features that exist only on the managed platform: branching, advanced metrics, managed backups and point-in-time recovery, analytics and vector buckets, ETL and the Management API. A self-hosted install is a single project, you handle security, upgrades, backups and scaling yourself, and support is community-based. It is a larger stack to run than a single binary.
Open-source alternative to
- Firebase — The Supabase README says it builds the features of Firebase from open source tools, so it can replace Firebase as the backend for an app, with Postgres instead of a document database.
Category
Backend & DatabasesTopics
Tech stack
TypeScript
DockerLanguages as reported by GitHub for the repository.
