COMPARE:
Supabase or Firebase for a new app backend
Supabase and Firebase both do giving a new application a backend without building one, and this page puts them on the same seven questions. Mamba Labs builds Apify actors. We have nothing of our own in this category, so this page is two products and no pitch.
If you only read one part
Supabase is Postgres with an API on it. Firebase is a document store that syncs to the device. Whether your data is relational is the question, and it is usually more relational than it looks on day one.
Dimension by dimension
| Supabase | Firebase | |
|---|---|---|
| What it actually does | Gives an application a real Postgres database with a generated REST and realtime API in front of it. | Gives an app a hosted document store, auth, functions and messaging, with offline sync built in. |
| Coverage and hit rate | Database, auth, object storage, edge functions, vector search and realtime, in one project. | Firestore, auth, functions, hosting, analytics, crash reporting and push, across mobile and web. |
| What it costs | Per project per month plus usage, with a free tier that pauses a project left idle. | Per read, write and delete, plus storage and function invocations, on a pay as you go plan. |
| How it fits a workflow | SQL, migrations, a CLI, and client libraries. It is a normal database you can also query directly. | Client SDKs first. Security rules replace server code for most of what an app needs. |
| Where the data comes from | Your own data, in your own Postgres instance, which you can dump and take elsewhere. | Your own data, inside Google Cloud, in a document model that does not export as SQL. |
| What it takes to set up | A project in minutes, and the SQL knowledge it assumes is the real cost. | Fastest here to a working app, especially on mobile, because the SDKs do the syncing for you. |
| Where it stops | It is Postgres, so the modeling work is yours. There is no schemaless shortcut here. | Query power is thin next to SQL, and per operation billing punishes a read heavy screen. |
The same seven questions are asked on every compare page here, in this order, so two of these pages can be read against each other.
Who wins what
- Supabase wins on how it fits a workflow, where the data comes from. Postgres with an API, auth, storage and edge functions around it.
- Firebase wins on coverage and hit rate, what it takes to set up. Google's mobile and web backend, built around a document database that syncs offline.
- Nobody wins on what it actually does, what it costs, where it stops. Supabase and Firebase give the same answer on those, and we are not going to invent a difference.
Where to get them
What is best for you
If the app is mobile first and needs to work offline, Firebase does that better than anything and the SDKs save weeks. If there is any reporting, any join or any admin view over the data, take Supabase. A document store makes all three hard forever. The exit matters too: a Postgres dump runs anywhere, and moving off Firestore is a rewrite. Per operation billing is the other thing to model early, because a chatty screen can cost more than the whole rest of the stack.