Introduction

This article will provide a brief overview of what is Supabase and its powerful features. Supabase is a Free Open Source Software(FOSS) providing a complete backend for mobile and web applications. The biggest challenge when building an app is not the coding, but picking the right tech stack such that the application can function at a huge scale. That's where Supabase comes in providing Database services as an alternative to Firebase. But wait, maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves so first let's understand what we mean by a database.

What's a database

A database is generally defined as the collection of structured information, or data, stored electronically in a computer system. Nowadays when there are thousands and millions of users running a single application, the need to store data efficiently arises. Here comes the various databases such as Firebase, and Oracle Database which provide methods to store data for modern applications with huge userbases. Supabse being one of them, offers a substitute for Firebase, providing various features such as Database webhooks and authentication services while being cross-platform.

Let's discuss the infrastructure of Supabase

Supabase uses Postgres to store data, this is a deliberate decision from the Supabase team. While Postgres does seem like a difficult database as compared to NoSql, Supabases tries to make it simpler and easy to use.
Below is a diagram of the basic infrastructure of Supabase

Now, lets try to understand each of the above concepts -
Supabase
The main part. It is the entire backend around the Postgres database.

Supabase Studio
The administration UI, which you see when you go to app.supabase.com.

Supabase Client Libraries
Supabase provides low-level access to Supabase with client libraries in various technologies.

Supabase CLI
Supabase CLI provides a command line interface for the Supabase API.

S3 storage provider
Supabase uses Amazon S3 storage to save all large files. However, for the self-hosted variant, you must select an S3-compatible storage provider.

Didn't quite catch on? No worries, let's simplify the working of Supabse.
At a high level, Supabse provides two things, The backend and The frontend. The backend consists of infrastructure such as a Database, file storage, and edge functions. The front end consists of SDK which basically connects the infrastructure to the various frameworks used to develop applications such as Reacr, flutter, etc. For users this allows the user to simply communicate to the infrastructure and automatically generates REST and GraphQl APIs

Conclsion

Supabase is a great open source alternative for Firebase, as most of the services Supabase uses are generally also open source, while also providing the various important services Authentication and row-level-security.