Tools / Firebase / Firebase vs Supabase
Google's app development platform: auth, Firestore, hosting, functions, and more.
Firebase is Google's platform for building and running mobile and web apps. It covers the app lifecycle with two product groups: Build and Run. Build products include Authentication, Firestore, Realtime Database, Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions, Hosting, App Hosting, App Check, SQL Connect, Extensions, Phone Number Verification, and AI-related services (Firebase AI Logic and Generative AI). The infrastructure is managed and powered by Google Cloud. Run products focus on operating and improving a live app: Crashlytics, Cloud Messaging, Google Analytics, Remote Config, A/B Testing, Performance Monitoring, In-App Messaging, App Distribution, and Test Lab. Firebase is backed by Google and aimed at teams that want managed infrastructure rather than running their own backend servers. New billing accounts can get $300 in credit to spend on Firebase and Google Cloud services.
Postgres plus auth, storage, and realtime — the open Firebase.
Supabase gives every project a full Postgres database and layers commonly needed backend services on top of it: authentication with Row Level Security, auto-generated REST APIs, Edge Functions, file storage, realtime data sync, and vector embedding support for AI workloads. You can use one product or all of them, and manage everything from a dashboard with a table editor, SQL editor, and RLS policy tools. It's open source (the GitHub repo shows over 111K stars) and the database is portable, so you're not locked into a proprietary data format. Client libraries exist for frameworks like React and Flutter, and the site offers starter templates including a Stripe subscriptions kit, a Next.js app with cookie-based auth, an AI chatbot template, and a LangChain starter.