788: Supabase: Open Source Firebase for Fullstack JS Apps

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Wes Bos

Tech News, News, Technology

4.9 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Scott and CJ chat with Paul Copplestone, CEO and co-founder of Supabase, about the journey of building an open source alternative to Firebase. Learn about the tech stack, the story behind their excellent documentation, and how Supabase balances business goals with open-source values. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:30 Who is Paul Copplestone? 01:17 Why ‘Supa’ and not ‘Super’? 02:26 How did Supabase start? 04:29 How long from inception to joining Y Combinator? 05:10 Was it always intended to be open source? Why Open Source. 07:22 How many users chose to self-host? 07:49 Open source mindset. 08:42 Simplicity in design. 10:32 How do you take Supabase one step beyond the competition? 12:35 How do you decide which libraries are officially supported vs community maintained? 15:17 You don’t need a client library! 16:48 Edge functions for server-side functionality. 18:51 The genesis of pgvector. 20:59 The product strategy. 22:25 What’s the story behind Supabase’s awesome docs? 25:26 The tech behind Supabase. 25:39 What is the UI built on? 27:33 Consolidation follows kaizen. 28:54 What else is involved in the stack? 31:47 Authentication. 32:35 Storage engine. 33:13 For self-hosting. 35:46 How do you balance business goals with open source? 42:01 What’s next for Supabase? 44:15 Supabase’s GA + new features. Top 10 LAunches from Supabase GA Week. 48:24 Who runs the X account? 50:39 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs. Sick Picks Paul: Apple Vision Pro. Shameless Plugs Paul: PostgreSQL. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads CJ: X Instagram YouTube TwitchTV Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Syntex. Today, CJ and I sat down with Paul Copplestone, the co-founder of
0:07.8	Supabase. We dive deep into the tech that powers Sup soup-a-base.
0:12.9	We talk all about Paul's outlook on open source
0:16.6	and the origins of soup-a-based,
0:18.7	including why it's super and not super.
0:22.0	So without further ado, here's Paul.
0:25.0	So, welcome to Syntax, Paul.
0:27.0	So, welcome to Syntax Paul. If you want to give us a quick introduction about maybe who you are and what you do at
0:37.5	Superbase and then we can get into some of the things a little bit deeper about
0:41.3	Superbase as a product.
0:43.0	Yeah, thanks for the, yeah, thanks for inviting me.
0:47.0	My name's Paul Cobblestone.
0:48.0	I'm the CEO and one of the co-founder of Superbase,
0:52.0	we're basically a open source fire base alternative is how we position
0:56.2	ourselves early on, but you can think of us really as a post-cress hosting company.
1:00.8	Nice.
1:01.8	Yeah, and you know, as a post-growth hosting company or even an alternative there, I've always been
1:08.2	impressed with the UI of Supa Bayes, how it makes things feel nice and easy for the user to get up and running.
1:15.2	It's not like you're managing a database, right?
1:17.8	So with that said, here's a quick question for my five-year-old.
1:22.5	Why super and not super?
1:24.9	Yeah, because it's very hard to purchase the domain name super.
	...

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