2 posts tagged with "postgresql"

Supabase is PostgreSQL with a backend bolted on. Every Supabase project is a real Postgres database; the difference is the layers around it — authentication, realtime websockets, file storage, edge functions and a web dashboard with an auto-generated API. Plain PostgreSQL is the database on its own.

So use Supabase if you want Postgres plus auth, realtime, storage, and a dashboard as one managed bundle. Self-host Postgres – or use a managed Postgres – if you mostly need a database and your app already handles its own auth and logic. The choice is not really "Postgres vs Supabase". It's whether you need the extra layers Supabase puts on top of Postgres.

This post gives you a clear way to decide, a side-by-side table, and the cases where each option is the right one.

When you're deploying your own app, the database choice matters more than most people think. It affects performance, ops complexity, backups, and how much memory your server needs.

There are four options you'll run into most often: SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis. They're not all the same kind of database – and that's the point. Here's when each one makes sense.