Building Superbase: Origins and Technical Foundations

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Exploring the creation story of Superbase, an open-source Firebase alternative, founded during the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter delves into the technical challenges faced with Firebase, the decision to build on top of Postgres for easy portability, and the company's philosophy of supporting existing open source tools. It also discusses the features of the Supabase platform, the unique approach of utilizing Postgres as a common substrate, and the focus on documentation for an enhanced user experience.

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.