Supabase is an 🏷️#open-source backend development platform built on 📝Postgres, launched in 2020 and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It bundles a hosted Postgres database with authentication, file storage, realtime subscriptions, auto-generated APIs, and edge functions, offered as a managed cloud service with a free tier and usage-based paid plans, or self-hosted.
Paul Copplestone and Ant Wilson founded the company in January 2020 and went through 📝Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch, positioning Supabase as an open-source alternative to 📝Firebase. The core contrast is architectural: every Supabase service sits on a real relational Postgres database rather than a proprietary document store, and authorization runs through Postgres row-level security. Adoption accelerated with AI app builders, as 📝Lovable and similar vibe-coding platforms provision Supabase as their default backend. In June 2026 the company raised a $500 million Series F at a reported $10.5 billion valuation, bringing total funding past $1 billion.
My first build on Supabase was in March 2025, pairing it with Lovable to prototype 📝HeartSync (app). Today it handles sign-in for 📝MythOS and 📝Hash.
Key Features
- Postgres database — Every project is a full Postgres instance with extensions, SQL access, and a table editor, so data stays portable rather than locked into a proprietary store.
- Auth — Email, magic-link, phone, and OAuth sign-in, with users stored in Postgres and access enforced through row-level security policies.
- Auto-generated APIs — REST and GraphQL endpoints generated directly from the database schema, with official client libraries for major languages.
- Realtime — Subscriptions that broadcast database changes, presence, and messages to connected clients over websockets.
- Storage and Edge Functions — File storage governed by the same access policies, plus globally distributed serverless functions written in TypeScript.