Rebase vs Supabase
Supabase is a fantastic platform, but its "Firebase alternative" marketing hides the operational overhead of managing raw PostgreSQL in production. See how Rebase solves the biggest pain points developers face when scaling.
RLS without the Footgun
The Supabase Pain
PostgreSQL Row Level Security (RLS) policies are notoriously difficult to write, test, and debug. Poorly written policies destroy performance via implicit JOINs, and Supabase lacks a built-in out-of-the-box RBAC UI.
How Rebase Solves This
Rebase embraces Native Postgres RLS but surrounds it with powerful tooling. Instead of writing opaque SQL, you define dynamic policies purely in TypeScript. Real-time inference generates user-friendly configuration UI.
- Built-in visual RLS policy editor.
- Define dynamic context directly in TypeScript instead of complex JOINs.
- Granular access control applied logically.
True Self-Hosting Symmetry
The Supabase Pain
Self-hosting Supabase is an infrastructure nightmare. It is a massive constellation of microservices: PostgREST (Haskell), GoTrue (Go), Realtime (Elixir), and Edge Functions (Deno). Upgrading these services independently is nearly impossible for small teams.
How Rebase Solves This
Rebase is unified. It is a single Node.js backend using standard Hono and Drizzle ORM.
- One service to deploy via Docker, Railway, Fly, or bare metal.
- Written completely in TypeScript — the language you already know.
- Tightly coupled and fully integrated without black-box binaries.
Schema-as-Code Workflow
The Supabase Pain
With Supabase, the database *is* the state. Local development, staging, and production environments quickly fall out of sync. Managing version control for RPCs, Triggers, and RLS inside raw SQL files requires extreme discipline.
How Rebase Solves This
Rebase pioneers a Git-backed hybrid approach. Your schema definitions live purely as standalone TypeScript configuration files (`/collections/products.ts`).
- The Rebase Studio uses AST manipulation to inject fields into your code safely.
- Drizzle migrations are automatically synced and deployed.
- Code is the source of truth, guaranteeing environmental parity.
Ready for a true Open-Source approach?
Rebase generates your admin panel, APIs, and SDK in minutes — right from your existing schema.
