Supabase — A Backend for IndieHackers

A review of Supabase

Calling all IndieHackers & "Makers who actually ship". Looking for a backend for your new project? Don't pick Firebase. Opt for Supabase instead.

"Firebase has been around for a long time, how is a new startup the better option", you ask?

It's simple but not easy — communicating with their users, relying on open source, and shipping new, meaningful features.

About the reviewer: All advice should be taken with a grain of salt, so here's a bit about me before you decide if this advice applies to you:

I'm evaluating Supabase inside Next.js and use React + Next professionally.
I've used AWS Amplify, Google's Firebase, and plain old Node/Express as backends for side projects.
Projects I'm working on range from mild to moderate complexity, nothing extreme.
I generally host my projects in Vercel.

Okay, so why do I think you should pick Supabase? Let's get into it.

What is Supabase?

Their H1 reads "The open source Firebase alternative" and they've definitely met that claim. I think they're going to have to change that title soon, though. They're on the way to eclipsing Firebase in terms of functionality and developer experience.

So what's does Supabase include?

A database
Authentication and authorization
3rd party auth integrations
storage (launched this week!)
plenty of client libraries (link)

Supabase pros

Btw, I wrote the TL;DR for this post first. If the tweet explains the point well enough, I'll let the tweet stand. No reason to add filler words.

SQL

As an IndieHacker, you should lean on your strengths. If SQL is already something you know, take advantage of that by picking something that uses SQL under the hood. If you have a super power, use it.

SQL is good. Especially if you already know it. If you’re like me, spending time figuring out firebase syntax is more work than writing a sql query.

Free tier

Here's a link to their pricing page. The takeaway: it's free while you're developing & a lot of hobby projects can stay on the free tier forever. Need a bigger database, backups, and more storage? Opt for $25/mo. Not bad.

Start free, upgrade when your project takes off 🚀

One stop shop

Supabase combines a lot of tools (auth, storage, database, (soon functions)) into one. Speed is super important as an IndieHacker.

Why? You're either competing with big companies and need to move faster or are working on your project on the side. If you only have one hour a day to code, you need to be able to move quickly during that hour.

Learn one tool, not 20.

High quality examples

Take a look at this starter. It's literally a SaaS in a box and I'm not exaggerating.

It includes:

Recurring payments
Billing (Stripe)
Stripe webhooks configured
Database schema for plans/users/pricing
Auth ready to go

Just add your business logic and you're off to the races.

P.S. — I'm building plzdm.me with this starter.

vercel/nextjs-subscription-payments

High quality examples. Their next-payments example is a SaaS in a box 📦

Incentives

Incentives matter a lot, and the Supabase team is highly incentivized to build the best product they can. Google is a complex, large company where incentives are unclear and resources shift frequently.

Deal with the smallest company you can.

Product velocity

Check out their blog — enough said.

Check out their monthly blog posts. They move fast. When is the last time firebase shipped a cool new feature?

Responsive team

You can DM the founding team on Twitter and they’ll probably respond.

Built on open-source

The Supabase CLI announced this week helps you easily eject from their hosting and run things yourself.

Don’t like the product? Fork it and go your own way 🍴

Supabase cons

So, are those pros enough? Maybe. Let's take a look at why it might not work for you.

You prefer NoSQL

If you're a big believer in NoSQL or your use case calls for it, Supabase does not have an option for you. Also if you don't know SQL, Supabase is definitely a SQL-first platform. Understanding Postgres gives you a leg up on the platform

You need more complex options

I wrote up a whole section on why you might want to opt for AWS Amplify if you know you're going to need more obscure hosting options.

You don't trust beta products

It's true, Supabase is not generally available yet. It's technically still a beta product. This is a fair concern imo, especially if you're trying to convince other founding members of your company to take a bet on this platform. Then again, this advice is NOT for big orgs or VC backed startups — it's for IndieHackers and solofounders.

Supabase vs AWS Amplify

Every strength is a weakness, so we could look at each of these "pros" and find a con for it. That's not what I'm going to focus on.

I think the real con of choosing Supabase is just that there are so many great options out there right now, one being AWS Amplify.

AWS Amplify is a strong contender here and has a great free tier (and the backing of AWS). Amplify allows you to progressively opt into the more complex world of AWS, whereas Supabase is limited to just Supabase.

I don't think that's bad, though. In fact, you could almost view their limits as a strength. It means Supabase is focused on a few core things & that the developer experience of those products will be enjoyable.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution. — Igor Stravinsky

I could write an in-depth summary of the differences of Amplify and Supabase, but I think the following sentence will do for now: AWS Amplify is to Supabase as Android is to iOS.

So what does that mean?

AWS is a complex place, and you can opt into as much of that complexity as you want in the Amplify world.

Supabase is simpler and all of the included parts work great together, batteries included.

But if you do need more complexity, consider mixing and matching AWS with Supabase. There's nothing stopping you from using them together.

So why pick Supbase as an IndieHacker?

I have skin in the game on this topic — I'm building plzdm.me with Supabase.

While I can't share the entire codebase, it's heavily influenced by one of the great Supabase starters I mentioned above.

I want to write as little code as I can to ship my project. After all, each line of code is debt.

/images/fast.gif

Basically, I need to go fast. And so do you. In IndieHacking, we're in the business of iterating 10,000 times, not putting in 10,000 hours.

Supabase helps me ship quickly, and I think it will help you do the same.

Want to watch me "go fast" and build a startup with Supabase?

Best of luck building out your business.

See you on the other side,

Drew