Supabase
Hosted Postgres database with authentication, file storage and API, open source and self-hostable. Free plan with projects paused after a week of inactivity.
For a small project, a SQLite or Postgres database with simple authentication is enough and keeps you in control of your data. What Supabase brings: turnkey authentication (sign-in by email, social networks), row-level access rules, file storage and managed backups. A home-made tool works as long as you handle passwords and backups well.
What you lose
- Turnkey authentication
- Row-level access rules
- File storage and managed backups
- The database's security updates
Existing alternatives to Supabase
- PocketBaseOpen source
Free backend (MIT) in a single executable: SQLite database, authentication, file storage and API.
- Supabase auto-hébergéOpen source
The same product as open source (Apache-2.0), installable with Docker on your own server.
- AppwriteOpen source
Self-hostable backend (BSD-3): database, authentication, storage and functions.
The prompt to build it yourself
Build me a small self-hosted backend for a web application, without claiming to replace Supabase. Stack: Node, TypeScript, SQLite (or Postgres if I specify), hosted on my small server. To do: - Authentication by email and password: hashed passwords (argon2), sessions by secure cookie, reset by email. - REST API on my tables with per-user access rules (each person reads and writes only their own rows). - File storage on disk with size and type limits. - Daily database backup and a tested restore procedure. - Login log, limit on the number of attempts. - Tests on the access rules; README with the update procedure. Out of scope: social-network authentication, real time, serverless functions.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Supabase be replaced by a custom-built tool?
- casevibecode verdict: Partly replaceable. For a small project, a SQLite or Postgres database with simple authentication is enough and keeps you in control of your data. What Supabase brings: turnkey authentication (sign-in by email, social networks), row-level access rules, file storage and managed backups. A home-made tool works as long as you handle passwords and backups well.
- What is Supabase used for?
- Hosted Postgres database with authentication, file storage and API, open source and self-hostable. Free plan with projects paused after a week of inactivity.
- What alternatives to Supabase already exist?
- PocketBase (open source), Supabase auto-hébergé (open source), Appwrite (open source). Options to compare before committing to a custom build.
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