- **Supabase** is an open source Firebase alternative built on Postgres. SQL, RLS, real-time, auth, storage, and edge functions all in one platform. - **Firebase** is Google's BaaS platform. Firestore (NoSQL), auth, Cloud Functions, Crashlytics, push notifications, and deep Google Cloud integration. - **Use Supabase if** you're building a web app or SaaS with relational data, you want predictable pricing, or you care about avoiding vendor lock-in. - **Use Firebase if** you're building a mobile-first app that needs offline sync, push notifications, or tight integration with Google Cloud services. - **The big 2026 shift:** Firebase launched Data Connect (Postgres-backed SQL queries inside Firebase). The gap is narrowing but the platforms still make very different tradeoffs. - **Pricing:** Supabase Pro is $25/mo flat plus usage. Firebase Blaze is pure pay-per-operation with no monthly floor — predictable at low scale, potentially expensive at high read volume.

## Supabase vs Firebase: The State of the Debate in 2026 Supabase vs Firebase is the most common backend decision for developers starting a new project. Both are Backend-as-a-Service platforms that give you a database, authentication, storage, and serverless functions without managing infrastructure. Both have generous free tiers. Both can get a project from zero to production in a day. The difference is in the philosophy. Supabase bets on open source Postgres as the single source of truth. Firebase bets on Google's managed infrastructure and a document model optimized for real-time mobile apps. In 2026 the debate has a new wrinkle: Firebase launched Data Connect, a SQL layer backed by Postgres inside the Firebase ecosystem. It's a significant shift and changes part of the calculus. But the two platforms still make fundamentally different tradeoffs that matter depending on what you're building. This guide covers the real differences — database architecture, pricing at scale, auth, real-time, vendor lock-in, and a clear framework for deciding which one fits your project.

## Database Architecture: Postgres vs Firestore This is the most important difference between the two platforms and everything else flows from it. **Supabase uses Postgres.** A fully managed relational database with tables, rows, foreign keys, joins, indexes, and full SQL. Every Supabase feature — auth, storage, real-time, edge functions — reads from and enforces policies in the same Postgres database. The auth system stores users in `auth.users`. Row Level Security policies reference `auth.uid()`. Your application data and your security layer are in the same place. **Firebase uses Firestore** (and optionally the older Realtime Database). Firestore is a NoSQL document database organized into collections and documents. There are no joins. No foreign keys. No SQL. Querying related data means either denormalizing it into a single document or making multiple round trips to fetch it. The practical consequence of this difference compounds as a product grows. A single dashboard page in a SaaS product might need user data, their organization, their projects, and recent activity. In Postgres that's one query with a few joins. In Firestore it's multiple collection reads that you have to assemble manually in application code. Every collection read is a billable operation on the Blaze plan. **Firebase Data Connect (2026)** In March 2026, Firebase launched Data Connect — a SQL query layer backed by a managed Postgres instance inside the Firebase ecosystem. It lets you write raw SQL queries and GraphQL schemas against a Cloud SQL Postgres database without leaving Firebase. It's a direct acknowledgment that relational data is where most web and SaaS applications end up. Data Connect is a real addition. But it's still a different product from Firestore, requires separate configuration, and doesn't have the same deep integration with Firebase Auth and Security Rules that Firestore does. If you want Postgres in 2026, Supabase still has a more coherent story. Data Connect is Firebase catching up, not Firebase pulling ahead.

## Pricing: The Numbers That Actually Matter This is where most comparison articles get vague. Here are the real numbers from both official pricing pages. **Supabase pricing (as of June 2026):** | Plan | Price | Includes | |---|---|---| | Free | $0 | 2 projects, 500MB DB, 50K MAU, 1GB storage, 5GB egress | | Pro | $25/mo per project | 8GB DB, 100K MAU, 100GB storage, 500GB egress | | Team | $599/mo | SOC2, HIPAA, 14-day backups, priority support | | Enterprise | Custom | Dedicated support, BYO cloud | Above Pro limits, Supabase charges usage-based overages. Storage beyond 100GB is $0.021/GB. MAU above 100K costs $0.00325 per user. Egress above 500GB is $0.09/GB. The Pro base covers most early-stage products without overages. One important note: free tier projects pause after one week of inactivity. Not an issue for production but worth knowing for development projects. **Firebase pricing (as of June 2026):** Firebase has two plans. Spark is free. Blaze is pay-as-you-go with no monthly floor. Spark free tier includes: 50,000 MAU for auth, 1GB Firestore storage, 50,000 Firestore reads per day, 20,000 writes per day, 1GB Firebase Storage, 10GB hosting transfer per month. Blaze charges per operation above the free daily limits: | Service | Cost | |---|---| | Firestore reads | $0.03 per 100,000 reads | | Firestore writes | $0.09 per 100,000 writes | | Firestore deletes | $0.01 per 100,000 deletes | | Firestore storage | $0.26 per GB/month | | Firebase Auth | Free up to 50K MAU, then $0.0055/MAU | | Cloud Functions | $0.40 per million invocations | | Firebase Storage | $0.026/GB stored, $0.15/GB downloaded | **The pricing trap with Firebase:** Firebase's Blaze pricing is not expensive at low usage. It becomes expensive when your read volume scales. A typical SaaS dashboard that keeps data live with Firestore listeners can generate many reads per user session — the listener fires every time the underlying document changes. Add AI features that re-read the same data for processing, and read amplification makes the bill hard to predict. At 50,000 active users doing moderate Firestore reads, monthly bills of $400 to $800 are common. Supabase Pro at the same user count is $25/mo plus any storage or egress overages. For apps with low read volume and bursty traffic, Firebase's pay-per-operation model can actually be cheaper than Supabase's flat $25/mo. The break-even depends heavily on your usage pattern.

## Authentication Both platforms include auth out of the box. **Supabase Auth** supports email and password, magic links, OAuth (Google, GitHub, Apple, and more), phone/SMS, and anonymous sign-in. Sessions are JWTs stored in the browser. The auth system lives inside your Postgres database — users are rows in `auth.users`, which means your application data and your user data are in the same place and can be joined in queries. Row Level Security policies reference `auth.uid()` directly: ```sql -- Users can only read their own data create policy "Users read own profile" on public.profiles for select using (auth.uid() = user_id); ``` Once this policy exists, every query against `profiles` is automatically scoped to the signed-in user. No application-level auth checks required. **Firebase Auth** supports email and password, Google, Apple, Facebook, GitHub, Twitter, phone/SMS, anonymous sign-in, and SAML/OIDC for enterprise. It's mature, well-documented, and widely used in both web and mobile apps. Firebase Auth stores users in its own managed system, separate from Firestore. You reference `request.auth.uid` in Security Rules: ```javascript rules_version = '2'; service cloud.firestore { match /databases/{database}/documents { match /profiles/{userId} { allow read: if request.auth.uid == userId; } } } ``` Firebase Security Rules are applied at the collection level and are powerful, but they live separately from your data model and must be maintained separately as your schema evolves. **Mobile auth advantage:** Firebase Auth has significantly more mature mobile SDKs. iOS and Android integration is battle-tested across millions of apps. Supabase has mobile SDKs but Firebase is the stronger choice for mobile-first apps that need biometric auth, Apple Sign In with native prompts, or deep Android integration.

## Real-Time Both platforms offer real-time data syncing. The architecture and developer experience differ. **Supabase Realtime** broadcasts database changes over WebSockets. You subscribe to changes on a table or a filtered subset of rows: ```ts const channel = supabase .channel('projects') .on( 'postgres_changes', { event: '*', schema: 'public', table: 'projects' }, (payload) => console.log(payload) ) .subscribe(); ``` Real-time is powered by Postgres logical replication. It's straightforward for simple use cases and integrates naturally with RLS — subscriptions respect your existing row-level policies. For complex real-time state management across many clients, you'll need more manual handling of optimistic updates and conflict resolution than Firestore provides. **Firestore Real-Time** is the most mature real-time database experience available. Document listeners fire automatically when underlying data changes: ```javascript import { onSnapshot, doc } from "firebase/firestore"; const unsub = onSnapshot(doc(db, "projects", projectId), (docSnap) => { console.log(docSnap.data()); }); ``` Firestore was designed from day one around real-time sync including offline persistence, automatic conflict resolution, and optimistic UI updates. If you're building a collaborative editor, a live game, a chat app, or any product where offline-first real-time sync is a core requirement, Firestore is ahead of Supabase here. **The verdict:** For typical web app use cases — live dashboards, notification feeds, collaborative tools — Supabase Realtime is capable and integrates more naturally with your Postgres data model. For mobile-first apps with offline sync as a core feature, Firebase's real-time story is more mature.

## Vendor Lock-In and Portability This is the most underappreciated difference between the two platforms. **Supabase is open source.** The entire platform — database, auth, storage, realtime, edge functions — runs on open source software. Postgres, GoTrue (auth), PostgREST (API layer), and Realtime are all public repos you can run yourself. If Supabase were to shut down tomorrow or raise prices dramatically, you could self-host the stack on your own infrastructure. Your data is standard Postgres — any Postgres-compatible tool can connect to it. Migrating off Supabase means: export your Postgres database, export your users from the auth system, and point your application at a new Postgres connection string. Painful but entirely doable. **Firebase is proprietary and Google-owned.** Your data lives in Firestore's document format, which has no direct equivalent outside Google Cloud. Migrating off Firebase means converting your document data model to a relational or different document model, rewriting your Security Rules into whatever your new platform uses, migrating your auth users (Firebase lets you export password hashes for reimport), and refactoring every Firestore query in your application. For a simple app this might take a few weeks. For a complex product with deeply nested Firestore data structures, it can take months. Several teams have documented 2 to 4 months of migration work for moderately complex apps. This is not a hypothetical concern. Companies that started on Firebase have had to migrate as they scaled and either hit pricing surprises or needed SQL for complex queries. The lock-in cost is real.

## Storage and Edge Functions **Storage:** Both platforms offer file storage. Supabase Storage uses S3-compatible storage and integrates with RLS — you can write policies controlling who can upload or download which files. Firebase Storage uses Google Cloud Storage and integrates with Firebase Security Rules. Both work fine for most use cases. Supabase has an edge on image transformation (built-in resizing and format conversion). Firebase integrates more smoothly with Firebase Hosting for static assets. **Edge Functions / Cloud Functions:** Supabase Edge Functions run on Deno at the edge. TypeScript only. Cold starts are fast and the execution model is straightforward. They integrate naturally with your Supabase client and database. Firebase Cloud Functions run on Node.js on Google Cloud. More mature, more features (background triggers, scheduled functions, Pub/Sub integration), more language options, and the Firebase ecosystem integrations are deeper. If you need complex event-driven serverless architecture or tight Google Cloud integration, Cloud Functions are more capable.

## AI and Vector Search One area where Supabase has pulled ahead in 2026 is AI infrastructure. Supabase ships `pgvector` as a first-class extension, letting you store and query embeddings directly in Postgres alongside your application data. Semantic search, RAG pipelines, and recommendation systems all work against the same database your app already uses. Firebase launched Firebase AI Logic in 2026 for Gemini integration, which handles AI-powered features within the Firebase ecosystem. It's well-integrated with Google's AI stack. For teams building on Vertex AI or using Gemini specifically, Firebase AI Logic is the more natural integration. For general-purpose vector search and embedding storage, Supabase's pgvector approach is simpler and doesn't require a separate vector database.

## The Decision Framework **Choose Supabase if:** - You're building a web app or SaaS with relational data - You want predictable, flat-rate pricing with no surprise bills - You care about avoiding vendor lock-in and want self-hosting as an option - You want auth and authorization enforced at the database level via RLS - You're building AI features that need vector search - Your team knows SQL **Choose Firebase if:** - You're building a mobile-first app that needs offline sync and conflict resolution - You need push notifications, Crashlytics, or Remote Config out of the box - Your infrastructure is already on Google Cloud - You need SAML/enterprise auth without an add-on - You're prototyping quickly and your team already knows Firebase **When neither is obvious:** If you're building a web app and your team already knows Firebase well, the switching cost may not be worth it for an MVP. Build on Firebase, validate the product, and migrate to Supabase when the SQL limitations or pricing become real problems. The migration is documented and doable. If you're starting fresh with no existing Firebase expertise, Supabase is the stronger default for web and SaaS in 2026.

## Wrap Up Supabase and Firebase have been converging in 2026 — Firebase added Postgres via Data Connect, Supabase improved its real-time story and mobile SDKs. But the core tradeoffs remain. Supabase is open source Postgres with a coherent security model and predictable pricing. Firebase is a mature Google-managed platform with the best mobile real-time story available. For most web applications and SaaS products, Supabase is the stronger starting point in 2026. For mobile-first apps with offline sync as a core requirement, Firebase is still ahead. If you're building a SaaS and want your project management, deployment tracking, and analytics in one place, check out [AdeptDev](https://adeptdev.io). Free for 7 days.

## Is Supabase better than Firebase in 2026? For web apps and SaaS products, yes. Supabase uses Postgres which handles relational data and complex queries better than Firestore, has predictable flat-rate pricing, and is fully open source with no vendor lock-in. Firebase is still the better choice for mobile-first apps that need offline sync, push notifications, and deep Google Cloud integration. The right answer depends on what you're building. ## What is the difference between Supabase and Firebase? Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative built on Postgres. It gives you a relational database, auth, storage, real-time subscriptions, and edge functions in one platform. Firebase is Google's proprietary BaaS using Firestore (NoSQL document database), with strong mobile SDKs, offline sync, and Google Cloud integration. The core difference is SQL vs NoSQL and open source vs proprietary. ## Which is cheaper, Supabase or Firebase? It depends on your usage pattern. Supabase Pro is $25/mo flat per project including 100K MAU and 8GB storage. Firebase Blaze is pay-per-operation with no monthly floor — cheap at low usage, expensive when read volume scales. For most SaaS products with moderate to high usage, Supabase is significantly cheaper. For very low traffic apps or apps with bursty traffic, Firebase's pay-per-operation model can be less expensive. ## Can you migrate from Firebase to Supabase? Yes, and it's well-documented. The migration involves exporting your Firestore documents and converting them to Postgres tables, exporting Firebase Auth users (Firebase provides password hash exports for reimport), rewriting Security Rules as Postgres RLS policies, and refactoring Firestore queries to SQL. For a simple app expect a few weeks. For a complex app with deeply nested Firestore data, budget 1 to 3 months. ## Does Firebase support SQL in 2026? Yes, through Data Connect launched in early 2026. Data Connect adds a Postgres-backed SQL query layer inside the Firebase ecosystem with GraphQL support. It's a meaningful addition but uses a different setup than Firestore and doesn't have the same deep integration with Firebase Auth and Security Rules. If you want Postgres in 2026, Supabase still has a more integrated and mature story. ## Is Supabase open source? Yes. Supabase is fully open source under the Apache 2.0 license. The database (Postgres), auth system (GoTrue), API layer (PostgREST), and real-time engine are all public repos you can self-host. Firebase is proprietary and owned by Google — you cannot self-host it. This is the most significant long-term difference for teams that care about vendor lock-in and data portability. ## Which is better for a mobile app, Supabase or Firebase? Firebase. Firebase's real-time sync with offline persistence and automatic conflict resolution is more mature than Supabase's for mobile use cases. Firebase also has better native iOS and Android SDKs, built-in push notifications via FCM, Crashlytics for error tracking, and Remote Config for feature flags. For mobile-first apps where offline sync is a core feature, Firebase is the stronger platform.