Used For

• +**Your authentication system is held together with duct tape and prayer** → Built-in auth with Google, GitHub, magic links, works in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours
• +**You're manually refreshing pages to see new data like it's 2010** → Real-time subscriptions push database changes instantly to all connected users
• +**Your Node.js backend keeps crashing at 3am on weekends** → Auto-scaling serverless functions run your custom logic without server maintenance
• +Auto-generates REST APIs from your database schema — no writing CRUD endpoints for the millionth time
• +Postgres with extensions for vector search and AI — your chatbot can actually query structured data properly

Best For

• >Your Firebase bills are getting scary and you want SQL without the server babysitting
• >Building a chat or collaborative app that needs real-time updates without the WebSocket headaches
• >You're a frontend dev who needs a backend by Friday and doesn't want to become a DevOps engineer

Not For

• -Non-developers or marketing teams — this still requires writing SQL queries and API calls, not drag-and-drop
• -Enterprise teams with strict compliance needs — you're trusting a startup with your data and depending on their uptime
• -Anyone wanting truly unlimited scale — the realtime features start choking around 500 concurrent users on the free tier

Pairs With

• *Next.js or React (for the frontend that talks to Supabase's auto-generated API)
• *Vercel or Netlify (to deploy your frontend while Supabase handles the backend)
• *Stripe (for payments since Supabase doesn't handle billing)
• *Resend or SendGrid (for transactional emails beyond basic auth emails)
• *Linear or GitHub Issues (where you'll track the features you're building 10x faster)
• *Postgres extensions (for vector search, full-text search, and other advanced database features)

The Catch

• !The free 500MB database fills up fast if you're storing files — 50 user profile photos and you're done
• !Real-time message costs spike quickly for chat apps — users report bills jumping from $25 to $200+ after going viral
• !Cold starts on Edge Functions can add 2-3 seconds of delay, which kills user experience for time-sensitive features

Bottom Line

Firebase for people who actually like SQL — cuts backend setup from weeks to hours but you'll still hit the billing wall eventually.