Is Supabase Good for Mobile Apps?

Yes. In 2025, Supabase is widely considered the "default" choice for React Native developers who want an open-source alternative to Firebase.

It solves the three hardest problems in mobile dev: Auth, Data, and Images.

1. Native Authentication (That Just Works)

Building auth from scratch is a nightmare. With Supabase + React Native, it's standardized.

// Sign in with Apple (using native iOS capabilities)
const { data, error } = await supabase.auth.signInWithIdToken({
  provider: "apple",
  token: appleAuthRequestResponse.identityToken,
});

It handles tokens, refresh cycles, and session persistence automatically using AsyncStorage.

2. Row Level Security (RLS)

This is Supabase's killer feature. Instead of writing API endpoints like GET /users/me and checking cookies, you literally just query the database from your phone:

// Frontend code
const { data } = await supabase.from("profiles").select("*");

"Wait, isn't that insecure?" No. You define a policy in your database:

CREATE POLICY "Users see their own profile"
ON profiles FOR SELECT
USING (auth.uid() = user_id);

The database itself filters the data. Your phone only gets what it's allowed to see. It’s genius.

3. Media Storage

Supabase Storage is basically an S3 wrapper. Uploading a user's avatar from their camera roll is trivial:

const { data } = await supabase.storage
  .from("avatars")
  .upload("public/avatar1.webp", file);

The "But..."

The only downside? You need to understand SQL concepts. If you try to use Supabase like a NoSQL document store (dumping JSON blobs everywhere), you're going to have a bad time. You need to design your schema properly.

Don't want to design a schema from scratch? VibeFast Pro comes with a production-ready Supabase schema (Users, Profiles, Subscriptions) already set up.

Start Building

Related Questions

• Supabase vs Convex: Which is better?
• How is vibecoding different from coding?