Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Fly.io VS Supabase

Compare Fly.io VS Supabase and see what are their differences

Fly.io logo Fly.io

Edge computing is the new frontier.

Supabase logo Supabase

An open source Firebase alternative
  • Fly.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-11-16
  • Supabase Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-27

Fly.io features and specs

  • Global Deployment
    Fly.io enables developers to deploy applications geographically close to users, reducing latency and improving performance.
  • CLI and Git-based Deployment
    Fly.io offers a command-line interface and Git integration for quick and efficient application deployment.
  • Automatic SSL
    Fly.io provides automatic SSL/TLS certificates, simplifying secure traffic management.
  • Scalability
    Applications deployed on Fly.io can scale both vertically and horizontally to handle varying loads.
  • Built-in Storage
    Fly.io offers persistent storage solutions such as Fly Volumes, which seamlessly integrate with applications.
  • Integrated Monitoring
    Fly.io provides built-in monitoring tools to track application performance and health.

Possible disadvantages of Fly.io

  • Learning Curve
    New users may find the platform's concepts and deployment methods unfamiliar, requiring time to learn.
  • Documentation
    Users have reported that the documentation can sometimes be lacking in detail or difficult to navigate.
  • Cost
    While Fly.io offers a free tier, the cost can become significant as you scale your applications.
  • Limited Language Support
    Fly.io supports fewer runtime environments and languages compared to more established platforms like AWS or Azure.
  • Platform Maturity
    As a relatively new platform, Fly.io may lack some advanced features and ecosystem integrations offered by more mature competitors.
  • Debugging
    The debugging tools and processes can be less comprehensive compared to traditional cloud providers.

Supabase features and specs

  • Real-time capabilities
    Supabase offers real-time database features that allow you to subscribe to database changes and sync data with your frontend seamlessly.
  • PostgreSQL foundation
    Supabase is built on PostgreSQL, a robust, mature, and highly extensible SQL database, providing strong data integrity and reliability.
  • Open-source
    Supabase is open-source, which means you can inspect, modify, and contribute to the source code. This fosters community engagement and transparency.
  • Ease of use
    Supabase provides an intuitive dashboard and auto-generated APIs, making it easy for developers to manage databases without extensive backend knowledge.
  • Authentication and Authorization
    Supabase includes pre-built authentication and authorization modules, supporting various sign-in methods like email, OAuth, and more, simplifying user management.
  • Scalability
    Supabase is designed to scale with your application, offering plans that can handle from small to large-scale traffic and data operations.

Possible disadvantages of Supabase

  • New and evolving
    As a relatively new platform, Supabase is still evolving, which means it might lack some features found in more mature solutions and could have occasional bugs or stability issues.
  • Limited integration
    Currently, Supabase has fewer third-party integrations compared to other established backend-as-a-service (BaaS) providers, which might limit its utility in diverse tech stacks.
  • Learning curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, there could be a learning curve for those unfamiliar with PostgreSQL or real-time database concepts.
  • Pricing for advanced features
    While Supabase offers a free tier, advanced features, and higher usage plans come with a cost. This might be limiting for startups or hobby projects with tight budgets.
  • Limited geographic presence
    Supabase's infrastructure might have limited geographic data centers compared to larger cloud providers, potentially affecting latency and performance for users in certain regions.

Analysis of Fly.io

Overall verdict

  • Fly.io is a strong choice for developers looking to enhance application performance through global deployment without the complexities often associated with managing multiple infrastructure locations. Its ease of use and robust features make it a competitive option in the edge computing space.

Why this product is good

  • Fly.io is known for its edge computing solutions that allow developers to deploy applications closer to users, resulting in reduced latency and improved performance. It supports a wide range of programming languages and frameworks, and offers a straightforward platform for deploying full-stack applications globally. Fly.io's pay-as-you-go pricing model can also be cost-effective for projects of various sizes.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking to deploy applications globally with minimal latency.
  • Teams needing a scalable and flexible infrastructure that can grow with their needs.
  • Projects that benefit from a serverless approach without sacrificing control over the code and environment.
  • Applications that require rapid deployment and ease of management.

Analysis of Supabase

Overall verdict

  • Supabase is a strong choice for developers looking for an affordable, open-source solution to manage their application's back-end with real-time data and user authentication.

Why this product is good

  • Supabase is an open-source alternative to Firebase, providing a robust back-end platform for web and mobile applications.
  • It offers real-time capabilities, authentication, and auto-generated APIs with PostgreSQL, making it versatile and efficient.
  • The platform is developer-friendly with excellent documentation and an active community.
  • Being open-source allows for greater flexibility and control over your projects.

Recommended for

  • Developers seeking an open-source alternative to Firebase.
  • Teams that require real-time data synchronization.
  • Projects needing a scalable and easy-to-use back-end solution.
  • Individuals or teams working with PostgreSQL.

Fly.io videos

We FLY a SPACESHIP! Video Game FLY.io Computer App with HobbyKidsTV

Supabase videos

Basic demo

More videos:

  • Review - Supabase in 100 Seconds by Fireship

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Fly.io and Supabase)
Cloud Computing
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
25 25%
75% 75
Realtime Backend / API
0 0%
100% 100
Cloud Infrastructure
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Fly.io and Supabase

Fly.io Reviews

5 Free Heroku Alternatives with Free Plan for Developers
Fly.io is one the best free alternatives to Heroku that you can use. It’s designed for developers and students to run small applications for free and scale costs affordably as you grow. Just like Heroku it comes with CLI applications and there are other tools in it that you can use to easily deploy your apps. For advanced users, it has premium plans but for now, due to its...

Supabase Reviews

10 Top Firebase Alternatives to Ignite Your Development in 2024
Supabase makes it incredibly easy to migrate from Firebase. Its data structure and APIs are designed to feel familiar, so you can switch without a major learning curve. Plus, the open-source nature means you have complete control over your code and data.
Source: genezio.com
Top 7 Firebase Alternatives for App Development in 2024
Community Support and Longevity: Investigate the size and activity of the platform's community. A larger, more active community can provide better support and resources. Platforms like Parse and Supabase have strong community support.
Source: signoz.io
5 Best Vercel Alternatives for Next.js & App Router
Supabase distinguishes itself through its focus on data and community-driven development. Self-hosting capabilities allow you to deploy Supabase's suite of products within your own infrastructure. This maintains data ownership while still leveraging Supabase's tools.
Source: il.ly
Best Serverless Backend Tools of 2023: Pros & Cons, Features & Code Examples
Create an account, a project, and a database. Unlike a NoSQL database like Firebase’s, you need to have a structure ready to be able to manipulate data. But once this step is done―and you’ll have ready-to-use templates to help speed up this part―you can call Supabase like so:
Source: www.rowy.io
2023 Firebase Alternatives: Top 10 Open-Source & Free
Supabase is another trusted platform in our list that calls itself an open-source alternative to Firebase. You can also name it one of the newest cloud service providers similar to Firebase because it launched in 2020. Indeed, with great scalability and documentation support, Supabase could be an ideal option.

Social recommendations and mentions

Supabase might be a bit more popular than Fly.io. We know about 502 links to it since March 2021 and only 463 links to Fly.io. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Fly.io mentions (463)

  • Litestream: Revamped
    The landing page shows all logos of small companies, including one that is migrating away from them (Turso) https://fly.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 15 days ago
  • How to Host a Mongoose-Powered App on Fly.io
    One increasingly popular answer is Fly.io—a global application hosting platform that makes it surprisingly simple to deploy backend services close to your users. Fly.io gives you speed, scalability, and even stateful service support (hello, databases!) without the DevOps headache. - Source: dev.to / 15 days ago
  • Why we broke up with kubernetes and found happiness in simplicity
    Fly.io Deploy apps globally without Kubernetes. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • How to Set Up CI/CD for a Python Backend Application on Fly.io Using GitHub Actions
    If you haven't already signed up for Fly.io, go to Fly.io and create an account. Once you have an account, sign in to the Fly.io dashboard. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • Why devs are quitting aws and what they’re choosing instead
    A dev on Hacker News once shared how their tiny API hosted on Lambda and fronted by API Gateway was costing them over $70/month. They moved it to Fly.io, rewrote it in Go, and now run it for $2/mo and that includes logging, metrics, and backups. - Source: dev.to / 27 days ago
View more

Supabase mentions (502)

  • Fast, Simple and Open Firebase Alternative: TrailBase
    What is the difference between this project and Supabase? Does this project have a different focus than Supabase regarding the features to be implemented? Supabase: https://supabase.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 days ago
  • Why devs are quitting aws and what they’re choosing instead
    Platforms like Railway, Render, Fly.io, Vercel, Supabase, and Cloudflare are leading the charge with a shared philosophy:. - Source: dev.to / 27 days ago
  • I analyzed how Supabase and Laravel launched. Here's what I learned.
    Supabase is an open-source alternative to Firebase. They turned fast shipping into a format: launch weeks — announcing something new every day. They were first and initiated a movement. Picture this: according to launchweek.dev, there were 126 launch weeks run by 94 different companies in 2024. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Why You Shouldn’t Invest In Vector Databases?
    In fact, even in the absence of these commercial databases, users can effortlessly install PostgreSQL and leverage its built-in pgvector functionality for vector search. PostgreSQL stands as the benchmark in the realm of open-source databases, offering comprehensive support across various domains of database management. It excels in transaction processing (e.g., CockroachDB), online analytics (e.g., DuckDB),... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • How to Host a Scalable Full-Stack App for Free Using Cloudflare Pages, Workers, and Supabase
    Create an account at Supabase and create a new project. You’ll get:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Fly.io and Supabase, you can also consider the following products

Render - Render is a unified platform to build and run all your apps and websites with free SSL, a global CDN, private networks and auto deploys from Git.

Firebase - Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications for mobile and web.

Railway - Made for any language, for projects big and small.

Next.js - A small framework for server-rendered universal JavaScript apps

Heroku - Agile deployment platform for Ruby, Node.js, Clojure, Java, Python, and Scala. Setup takes only minutes and deploys are instant through git. Leave tedious server maintenance to Heroku and focus on your code.

AppWrite - Appwrite provides web and mobile developers with a set of easy-to-use and integrate REST APIs to manage their core backend needs.