Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 130 posts

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#21

Post by _query »

searchableguy wrote: post #17
_query wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's using Postgres pg_notify to subscribe to tables and using a WebSocket server to distribute the changes. The table watcher is written in Haskell and based on the IHP haskell framework. Using Haskell makes it very easy and efficient to deal with lot's of active sessions in parallel. You can find the source code here https://github.com/digitallyinduced/ihp/blob/master/IHP/Data... if you're interested :)

That's a similar approach to supabase. Why reinvent the wheel? (I'm asking out of curiosity here). Why websockets? Do you allow bidirectional communication? If not, wouldn't it be better to use http push for easier scaling?

> That's a similar approach to supabase. Why reinvent the wheel?

We've initially built the technology already for IHP DataSync (https://ihp.digitallyinduced.com/Guide/realtime-spas.html). So we used what we already had here :)

> Why websockets?

We also use the WebSockets to do write operations. This allows for lower latency than doing a HTTP call for any API call. Additionally we run all operations in parallel. With HTTP push we wouldn't be able to easily run all these operations in parallel.

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#22

Post by rektide »

chrisweekly wrote: post #20
sk55 wrote: post #11

For people who have some experience in this, what's the best less-code backends? Hasura? Supabase? Prisma? Thin?

Please remedy my ignorance if I might be wrong, but I thought Prisma was an ORM, not a true backend.

I havent been following closely, but Prisma just landed $40m series B, & their announcement describes it as an intent to grow into an "Application Data" platform. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31251167

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#23

Post by kiwicopple »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #7
kache_ wrote: post #2

one of these will finally stick, and more people will be able to build apps

I’ve been self hosting it for the past couple of months. It is a really nice product. Allows one to get fully fledged app with backend running extremely quickly, just drop a front end in. There’s still some annoyances with it though - Work still needs to be done to enable backend communication over services using SSL - it’s currently unencrypted by default. I was able to get SSL working with some minor changes to sou…

> Anon role should start with nothing and the end user should very explicitly be turning on what unauthenticated users can access.

We agree. We're working on a pathway towards this. Under our original designs we matched all defaults to Postgres' defaults, and with any additions the idea was to "stay out of the way" during development. It's become increasingly important for us to design around security. This will definitely mean more difficult development for newbie developers, but it's an important step forward.

> I’ve been self hosting it for the past couple of months. It is a really nice product

Thanks for the kind words! The credit also belongs to the open source tools we leverage - Postgres, PostgREST, GoTrue, Kong

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#24

Post by searchableguy »

_query wrote: post #21
searchableguy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a similar approach to supabase. Why reinvent the wheel? (I'm asking out of curiosity here). Why websockets? Do you allow bidirectional communication? If not, wouldn't it be better to use http push for easier scaling?

> That's a similar approach to supabase. Why reinvent the wheel? We've initially built the technology already for IHP DataSync ( https://ihp.digitallyinduced.com/Guide/realtime-spas.html ). So we used what we already had here :) > Why websockets? We also use the WebSockets to do write operations. This allows for lower latency than doing a HTTP call for any API call. Additionally we run all operations in parallel. Wit…

Cool. Thanks for answering.

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#25

Post by chrisweekly »

rektide wrote: post #22
chrisweekly wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please remedy my ignorance if I might be wrong, but I thought Prisma was an ORM, not a true backend.

I havent been following closely, but Prisma just landed $40m series B, & their announcement describes it as an intent to grow into an "Application Data" platform. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31251167

cool, ty

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#26

Post by kiwicopple »

ignoramous wrote: post #15
bgorman wrote: post #6

Unfortunately this is the wrong team. I have worked on several Postgres full stack applications over the past few years, and I really wanted Supabase to work, the idea sounded great. The JavaScript SDK, the documentation for getting started, and the user interface are all horrible/half-baked. Instead of speeding up my development, Supabase lead me to waste hours in confusion. It is easier to roll your own auth and se…

> Unfortunately this is the wrong team. Ouch. I don't get those vibes from them, but it could also mean that building a FOSS platform like supabase is terribly hard? > For a product whose whole purpose is to enable developers to move faster, the product misses the mark completely. The good news is, they've now got $80m to hire top talent and figure this out over the course of next few years.

I agree! I think our team is great

But then again, the harsh feedback is usually has the most truth. I'll share it with the team - we are always looking to improve.

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#27

Post by kiwicopple »

bgorman wrote: post #6

Unfortunately this is the wrong team. I have worked on several Postgres full stack applications over the past few years, and I really wanted Supabase to work, the idea sounded great. The JavaScript SDK, the documentation for getting started, and the user interface are all horrible/half-baked. Instead of speeding up my development, Supabase lead me to waste hours in confusion. It is easier to roll your own auth and se…

> If I were CEO I would shift all resources to fixing the UI and SDK

I'm the CEO :)

Thanks for the feedback. I would love to hear any specifics - where you got stuck and which parts of the UI/SDK we can improve. My email is in my profile.

We know we have a lot more to do, and we love building based on user feedback.

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#28

Post by citilife »

> The service can’t, of course, match Firebase on a feature-by-feature basis, but it offers many of the core features that developers would need to get started, including a database, storage and authentication service, as well as the recently launched Supabase Edge Functions, a serverless functions-as-a-service offering.

Some glowing reviews there... lol

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#29

Post by nicoburns »

kiwicopple wrote: post #23
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been self hosting it for the past couple of months. It is a really nice product. Allows one to get fully fledged app with backend running extremely quickly, just drop a front end in. There’s still some annoyances with it though - Work still needs to be done to enable backend communication over services using SSL - it’s currently unencrypted by default. I was able to get SSL working with some minor changes to sou…

> Anon role should start with nothing and the end user should very explicitly be turning on what unauthenticated users can access. We agree. We're working on a pathway towards this. Under our original designs we matched all defaults to Postgres' defaults, and with any additions the idea was to "stay out of the way" during development. It's become increasingly important for us to design around security. This will defi…

> This will definitely mean more difficult development for newbie developers, but it's an important step forward.

Documentation is key here. Default closed policies aren't a problem if customising them is in the getting started guide.

Re: Supabase (YC S20) raises $80M Series B

#30

Post by endisneigh »

sk55 wrote: post #11

For people who have some experience in this, what's the best less-code backends? Hasura? Supabase? Prisma? Thin?

There’s no best really, but in my experience I prefer Hasura. I think their security model makes more sense than row level security and I prefer GraphQl.

You should try both and see

Post reply on HN