No-coder’s guide to Supabase

You may have noticed that Supabase has been blowing up. In case you’ve been living under a rock, Supabase is a low-code database used by millions of developers (and now non-developers). Recently, its become popular as the backend of choice for vibe-coding tools like Lovable and Bolt.

As someone more comfortable with Airtable and Notion, I was initially intimidated by Supabase. Their site throws around developer terms like “Postgres”, “functions”, and “Vector embeddings”.  But, once you get the hang of it, Supabase is incredibly powerful and a key part of building real apps with AI.

This short guide provides an intro to Supabase for non-developers. In a few minutes, you’ll understand what Supabase is, how it fits into AI app building, and how you can set it up yourself. By the end, Supabase will be an extremely useful part of your no-code toolkit 😉.

What is Supabase?

Fundamentally, Supabase is a database. In other words, it’s place to store data for your application. 

In the no-code world, you’ll often see apps built with the following stack:

• Webflow (frontend)
• Airtable (database)
• Whalesync (connects frontend to database)

In the developer world, you’ll see a similar setup with:

• React (frontend)
• Postgres (database)

While Supabase provides a ton of useful features for developers, at its core, it’s a place to store data in tables that can power your applications. 

Supabase is “Postgres”? What does that mean?

You might have heard that Supabase is a “Postgres” database. While that can be confusing if you’re not a developer, the distinction is useful to understand.

PostgreSQL (aka “Postgres”) is a type of database used by millions of people, including some of the world’s biggest companies. It’s open source, meaning that anyone can start building with a Postgres database for free. That being said, there are a handful of services that offer Postgres, alongside a handful of other features, at a cost. 

Supabase is one of those managed services. A few other popular ones you might know are:

• Amazon RDS
• Google Cloud SQL
• Neon

So why does this matter? Just know that Supabase is a Postgres a database and don’t get confused if someone uses “Supabase” or “Postgres” interchangeably in a sentence.

How is Supabase different than Airtable?

Ok, so Supabase has tables and fields and I can store my data there… so how is it different from Airtable?

The key difference is that Supabase was built specifically to be a database whereas Airtable was built to be a database/spreadsheet hybrid.

In practice, this means that Airtable is simpler, easier to use, and more flexible. You truly don’t need to know anything about code to use Airtable and it’s chock full of operational features like kanban views, automations, and extensions.  

Since Supabase is meant more for developers, you’ll notice more technical language all over the app. It doesn’t have no-code features like forms and interfaces BUT it does come full of key tools for building real applications. The two big ones in the context of building apps with AI are authentication and scalability. In other words, Supabase can be your database even if you have millions of real users.

In short:

• Airtable: no-code spreadsheet/database hybrid
• Supabase: low-code database

Why has Supabase become so popular?

Supabase has skyrocketed in popularity since launching in January of 2020. While certainly not the first Postgres database on the market, it has quickly become the database of choice for millions of people.

A big reason for Supabase’s success has been how easy they’ve made it to create a scalable Postgres database. As their tagline says, you can “build in a weekend, scale to millions”. 

Since it’s a Postgres database under-the-hood, Supabase can handle millions of users. Yet, unlike other Postgres databases, you don’t actually need to know code to use it. Normally, setting up a Postgres database involves a handful of technical steps. Supabase, on the otherhand, will create a database for you in just a few clicks.

While this ease of use is appreciated by many developers, it’s also why Supabase has become the database of choice for non-developers. If you’re building an app with AI tools like Bolt or Lovable, you need a backend to store your data. The low-code nature of Supabase has made it a natural choice for the AI vibe-coder.

How do I use Supabase in my AI app or no-code project?

Now you know what Supabase is, how it’s different from Airtable, and why people love it. Of course the next question is, “how do I actually use it?”.

Luckily, if you’re building with Bolt or Lovable, it’s never been easier to get started with Supabase! Both of these tools now have a “Connect to Supabase” button built right into their editor. As you’re building your AI app, all you have to do is click that button and AI will both spin up a database and connect your app to it.

In practice, we generally recommend following these steps when building an AI app:

1. Pick your AI app builder of choice (e.g. Bolt or Lovable).
2. Chat with the AI to build the frontend of your app (e.g. the screens your users will click).
3. Once you’ve got the basic frontend, ask AI what type of database schema would be best for your app.
4. Once you land on a data schema, click “Connect to Supabase” and ask the AI to build your database for you.
5. Now that you have a database, ask the AI to add “Supabase auth” to your app so that users can create accounts.
6. Finally, jump into your new Supabase database to view how all your data is stored.

Adding a backend like Supabase to your AI app is a critical piece in making your app functional and scalable. With the power of AI, it’s now easier than ever to build fully functional apps end-to-end. If you want to see this in action, check out the 20 minute video below.

How can I edit the data in Supabase?

Once you’ve used AI to build your Supabase database, you’re well on your way to building a real web app! The only problem is that Supabase is a database a not a flexible data editor like Airtable. So how do you solve that?

Luckily, with Whalesync, it’s super easy! Whalesync lets you connect Supabase to Airtable so you can take advantage of both tools. Supabase remains as the backend of your AI-app and Airtable becomes your admin panel for making edits in Supabase.

To set this up, you can follow the steps outlined 5-minute guide for connecting Supabase and Airtable.

Supabase + Airtable = 🤩

Supabase is an amazing, low-code database and should be a part of your toolkit if you’re building apps with AI. At its core, it provides you with editable tables of data that can power your app as you scale to millions of users.

While Supabase is not as flexible as Airtable, you can use Whalesync to connect Supabase to Airtable and get the best of both worlds. Infinite scalability with Supabase and infinite flexibility with Airtable.