Firebase vs. Supabase: which one should I select?
Tags: firebase, backend, webdev, programming
Published: 2023-08-08 11:44:13

Firebase and Supabase are well-known BaaS (backend as a service) platforms. These platforms provide pre-built backend infrastructure and services and revolutionize web and mobile app development.

Here, we shall compare these two and learn more about them.

## Firebase
[Firebase](https://firebase.google.com/)was first released in 2011, and Google acquired it in 2014. Firebase is very popular because of its simplicity. It offers products in three phases: Build, Release, and Engage. Every stage corresponds to a distinct phase of development. For each of these phases, Firebase has developed unique products. Google Cloud supports Firebase projects, allowing your application to scale to billions of users.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/u58rq34tkagt86x85oi5.png)

Firebase provides authentication, storage, Firebase ML, a real-time database, hosting, and cloud messaging services.

It supports some extensions you can use to automate development tasks. Some of them are Deleting user data, Image resizing, triggering emails, and translating text.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x2vpghf0vrdremjwxpgy.png)

It also provides easy integrations for popular platforms like Google Analytics, Slack, Google Ads, Firebase Performance Monitoring, Remote Configuration, and more.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/68yqvb0xc2e2o51el7ss.png)

The main reasons one can use Firebase are:

### Developer experience

It's well-documented and easy to use, and the team has an outstanding culture of listening to developer feedback.

### Cost
The second is the minimization of cost. Firebase is free for small experimental projects and scales up linearly based on user growth and design choices.

It also provides unlimited users and 1 GB of data for free.
In Firebase, it costs a small amount, something like $0.18 per GB. In Firebase, you also pay for reads and writes to the database, which typically accounts for most of your monthly expenses.

### Maximization of time
It allows you to create the most value in the shortest amount of time.

## Firebase Extensions

[Firebase Extensions](https://extensions.dev/extensions) are designed to boost productivity and give your applications extra capabilities without requiring you to research, write, or debug code. Using Firebase Extensions, you can offer setup options for your extension that are unique to your needs.

## Supabase

[Supabase](https://supabase.com/) is open source, self-hosted, and can be connected to an internal Postgres database. The table-like structure of Postgres makes it a good tool for storing structured and related data. Interestingly enough, we can import an existing spreadsheet into a project and use it as our Postgres database. Supabase originally had its infrastructure on Digital Ocean but migrated over to AWS.

Supabase was built in 2019. It is an alternative to Firebase. It's open-source, free software, and a complete backend for Mobile apps and websites.

Supabase provides services like edge functions, storage, authentication, and real-time database.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/6aos2p1ezx6ge90gxk7w.png)

The main reasons one can use Supabase are:

### Developer experience
It can be a great pick because of its sizeable open-source community, comprehensive documentation, and ease of use.

### Cost
It provides 10K users and 500 MB of Data for free.

It costs around $25 per month for 8GB. With Supabase, you get unlimited API requests and network traffic to your database, which is a fantastic offer, as typically, you have to pay for CPUs to handle this traffic, which can be very expensive at scale. If you require more than 8 GB on Supabase, you can upgrade to the pay-as-you-go plan for an additional 12 cents per month per GB. This is a great deal that is significantly less expensive than what any of the major cloud providers have to offer.

### Maximization of time

It is meant to make it easy for developers to quickly set up their backend. "Build in a weekend, scale to millions" is the motto of Supabase.

### Import/Export Data

You can import and export large datasets to and from the PostgreSQL database using Supabase. That could be a plus.

## Difference between the two
Here are some key differences between the two, a comparison of the two technologies, and a discussion of situations in which Supabase ought to be used rather than Firebase.
Scalability and Security: After going over every aspect, we can say that both offer scalability. Supabase uses PostgreSQL's flexibility and scalability for complex data structures, and Firebase excels in real-time data synchronization and high concurrency.

Both platforms take security very seriously and provide tools to aid in maintaining the safety of your applications.

**Export Data**: Supabase comes with built-in data import and export features to and from the PostgreSQL database. But Firebase requires custom solutions or third-party apps.

**Open Source**: Because Supabase is open source, developers may change and customize it as desired for greater flexibility. Firebase is a closed source and provides less room for customization.

**Real-time feature**: Both Firebase and Supabase provide real-time database update features.

**Cost**: Both provide a limited free tier and a pay-as-you-go pricing model. As an open-source solution, Supabase offers a managed hosting service in addition to self-hosting, which gives users greater control over infrastructure costs.

**Database**: Firebase supports NoSQL databases. Supabase, on the other hand, uses PostgreSQL for its robust relational database. NoSQL might come in handy when you want to create data quickly and have a flexible range of data types. A relational database may be beneficial when data is connected, rigid, and required to be constant at all times.

Your choice of BaaS platform should solely be based on the project you will be working on. Before selecting one, carefully consider your needs, as both platforms have benefits and limitations.

You can consider the following points: If you're searching for a fully managed solution with serverless capabilities, real-time updates, a NoSQL database, and a Google Services connection, Firebase might be a better choice. Yet, Supabase is a fantastic option if you want relational databases, data integrity, open-source software flexibility, and infrastructure control and want to host your website yourself.

## Conclusion
That's all for now. I really hope you found it helpful and learned something valuable from it to select a better fit for your project. Please clap it, leave a comment, and share it with others if you like it.
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Happy learning :))