Episode 511: Ant Wilson on Supabase (Postgres as a Service)

Features

Supabase leverages the extensive features of PostgreSQL to enhance its capabilities, offering flexibility and scalability for developers. Ant Wilson explains that PostgreSQL's extensibility allows for complex authentication policies and the use of various programming languages like SQL, Python, and JavaScript 1. This flexibility is complemented by scalable solutions where each Supabase account is provided with its own EC2 instance, allowing for automatic scaling based on resource usage 2.

You can use your postgres connection string to log in from the command line and do whatever you want. It's yours.

--- Ant Wilson

This setup ensures that users have control over their resources while benefiting from PostgreSQL's robust features.

   

Real-Time

Supabase's implementation of real-time data streaming in PostgreSQL is a significant technical achievement. Wilson describes how they developed a server that acts as a PostgreSQL replica, receiving the write-ahead log and encoding it into JSON for subscription over websockets 3. This innovation allows users to subscribe to changes at various levels, ensuring secure and efficient data streaming.

The real time stream is fully secure and you can apply the same policies that you apply over the crude API as well.

--- Ant Wilson

Despite initial challenges with scalability, improvements have been made to handle large write-ahead logs, showcasing the team's expertise in using Elixir for horizontal scalability 4.