Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VS Code VS Supabase

Compare VS Code VS Supabase and see what are their differences

VS Code logo VS Code

Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft

Supabase logo Supabase

An open source Firebase alternative
  • VS Code Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-10-09
  • Supabase Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-27

VS Code features and specs

  • Cross-platform
    VS Code works on Windows, macOS, and Linux, providing a consistent development experience across different operating systems.
  • Extensibility
    A vast library of extensions allows users to add functionalities like debuggers, linters, and themes, making it highly customizable.
  • Integrated Git
    Built-in Git integration makes it easy to manage version control tasks directly within the editor.
  • Performance
    Lightweight compared to full-fledged IDEs, ensuring good performance even on systems with limited resources.
  • IntelliSense
    Advanced code completion and refactoring tools help improve coding efficiency and reduce errors.
  • Community Support
    A strong and active community provides extensive support, tutorials, and third-party extensions.
  • Debugging
    Robust debugging tools for various languages and frameworks are available out of the box.
  • Free and Open-Source
    VS Code is completely free to use and open-source, which is beneficial for both individual developers and organizations.

Possible disadvantages of VS Code

  • Limited IDE Features
    While extensible, it may lack some advanced features found in dedicated IDEs out of the box.
  • Extension Management
    Managing and configuring a large number of extensions can become cumbersome and sometimes lead to performance issues.
  • Learning Curve
    Although user-friendly, it has a steeper learning curve for beginners due to its numerous features and customization options.
  • Memory Usage
    Despite being lightweight, it can consume a significant amount of memory when multiple extensions are installed.
  • Update Frequency
    Frequent updates may sometimes introduce bugs or require users to adapt to new changes quickly.
  • Internet Dependency
    Some features and extensions may require an internet connection to function optimally.
  • Telemetry
    By default, VS Code collects usage data, which might be a concern for users sensitive about data privacy. However, this can be disabled.

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 VS Code

Overall verdict

  • Yes, VS Code is generally considered a good choice for developers due to its flexibility, efficiency, and strong community support. It is lightweight, fast, and user-friendly, catering to both novice and experienced developers.

Why this product is good

  • VS Code, developed by Microsoft, is a widely popular and versatile code editor. It offers a robust extension ecosystem, which allows developers to customize their workflow and coding environment extensively. Additionally, VS Code supports numerous programming languages right out of the box and provides features like IntelliSense, debugging, Git integration, and a built-in terminal, making it a powerful tool for developers.

Recommended for

  • Web developers looking for a comprehensive yet lightweight coding environment.
  • Software developers who need an editor with extensive language support and customization options.
  • Beginner programmers who would benefit from a feature-rich editor that can grow with their skills.
  • Developers interested in an open-source tool with continuous updates and community-driven enhancements.

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.

VS Code videos

My New Favorite Text Editor - Visual Studio Code

More videos:

  • Review - 7 reasons why I switched to Visual Studio Code from Sublime Text

Supabase videos

Basic demo

More videos:

  • Review - Supabase in 100 Seconds by Fireship

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VS Code and Supabase)
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
52 52%
48% 48
IDE
100 100%
0% 0
Realtime Backend / API
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

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

VS Code Reviews

  1. dksinden
    ยท Working at SpeechKit ยท

Boost Your Productivity with These Top Text Editors and IDEs
Visual Studio Code, commonly known as VS Code, is a powerful and extensible code editor developed by Microsoft. With its rich ecosystem of extensions and features like IntelliSense, debugging, and Git integration, VS Code enhances your coding productivity.
Source: convesio.com
13 Best Text Editors to Speed up Your Workflow
Finally, the Visual Studio Code website has numerous tabs for you to learn about the software. The documentation page walks you through steps like the setup and working with different languages. Youโ€™re also able to check out some tips and tricks and learn all of the Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts. Along with a blog, updates page, extensions library and API...
Source: kinsta.com
Jupyter Notebook & 10 Alternatives: Data Notebook Review [2023]
Previously, VS Code was more suited to developers or engineers due to its lack of data analysis capabilities, but since 2020, the VS Code team has collaborated with the Jupyter team to create an integrated notebook within VS Code. The end result is a fantastic IDE workbook for data analysis.
Source: lakefs.io
The Best IDEs for Java Development: A Comparative Analysis
Overview: Although not a traditional IDE, VS Code has gained popularity as a lightweight code editor.
Source: dev.to
20 Best Diff Tools to Compare File Contents on Linux
Visual studio code is a code editor made by Microsoft. It supports several development operations like debugging, task running, and version control. It works on Linux, macOS and Windows operating systems.
Source: linuxopsys.com

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 Firebaseโ€™s, you need to have a structure ready to be able to manipulate data. But once this step is doneโ€•and youโ€™ll have ready-to-use templates to help speed up this partโ€•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

Based on our record, VS Code should be more popular than Supabase. It has been mentiond 1177 times since March 2021. 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.

VS Code mentions (1177)

  • Improve Your Git Commit Messages with GitLens Tips
    To generate the commit messages, first of all, you have to change your codebase ๐Ÿ˜Ž After that, when you are ready to commit, itโ€™s time to generate the message. To do that, you need to go to the Source Control panel in VSCode, and if you have the GitLens extension installed, you can use the โ€œMagicโ€ icon to generate the message. - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
  • How to upload SDI FatturaPA invoices with C#
    We use the dotnet tool and VS Code as they are available on most systems, but you can follow along with your favourite IDE (Visual Studio, Rider, etc.) if you prefer. - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • An Experiment with AI Assisted Web Development
    As a productive learning exercise, I spent the last couple of evenings taking Cursor (the desktop code editor that is a fork of VS Code) for a spin to build a new web app I needed for a side project โ€“ a system to manage charity raffle tickets at the 2025 Melbourne Pen & Stationery Show I am helping to run soon. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
  • Go (Golang) - Environment Setup
    Download: Get it from its official site: code.visualstudio.com. - Source: dev.to / 6 days ago
  • Microsoft: An Open-Source Comedy
    Since the beginning of opensource ideology, Microsoft has been one of those companies that no one ever expected to join the cause. Weirdly enough, They did! By making PowerShell opensource, and more important than that: by introducing Visual Studio Code to the world of programming. Microsoft vscode is one the fastest text editors out there and, thanks to its massive list of extensions, one of the best most-used... - Source: dev.to / 14 days ago
View more

Supabase mentions (521)

  • Optimize Read Performance in Supabase with Postgres Materialized Views
    This tutorial explains how I improved my application's read performance using Postgres materialized views in Supabase. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
  • Mastering Postgres Window Functions for Data Analysis in Supabase
    All examples in this blog are tested on Supabase, an open source backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that simplifies backend development for web and mobile applications. Supabase provides full support for Postgres databases. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • Data Integrity First: Mastering Transactions in Supabase SQL for Reliable Applications
    But relying on these safeguards isn't as simple as sprinkling BEGIN and COMMIT into your code. You still have to address challenges like race conditions, constraint violations, and mid-transaction failures across API layers. Supabase helps solve these issues by building on Postgres and handling the transaction logic directly at the database itself. It exposes the logic through streamlined interfaces that preserve... - Source: dev.to / 11 days ago
  • Build a Real-Time Chat App with Flutter and Supabase
    If you don't have an account, head over to supabase.com and sign up. Once you're in, create a new project. Give it a name, generate a secure database password, and choose a region. Your project will be ready in a couple of minutes. - Source: dev.to / 11 days ago
  • Cheat Sheet for Basic Python for Postgres
    Instead of setting up a local Postgres instance, I decided to use Supabase because it provides a fully managed, hosted Postgres database out of the box, simplifying the setup time and database management. This allows us to focus entirely on writing and deploying the application code without worrying about infrastructure details. First, visit Supabase and create a free account if you don't have one yet. - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VS Code and Supabase, you can also consider the following products

Sublime Text - Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.

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

Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing

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

Notepad++ - A free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.

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