Supabase as a Firebase Alternative: Building a Real-time App

Introduction

As web applications evolve, real-time functionality has become increasingly important. Firebase has long been a popular choice for adding real-time capabilities to apps, but Supabase has emerged as a powerful open-source alternative. In this article, we’ll explore how to use Supabase to build a real-time app, comparing it to Firebase along the way.

What is Supabase?

Supabase is an open-source Firebase alternative that provides a suite of tools for building scalable and secure web applications. It offers:

• Real-time database
• Authentication
• Storage
• Serverless functions
• Auto-generated APIs

Setting Up Supabase

1. Create a Supabase account at supabase.com
2. Create a new project
3. Install the Supabase client in your app:

npm install @supabase/supabase-js

4. Initialize Supabase in your app:

import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js'
const supabase = createClient('YOUR_SUPABASE_URL', 'YOUR_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY')