Chartbrew vs Supabase
| Tagline | Connect databases and APIs to build and share live charts | Open-source Firebase alternative built on PostgreSQL with realtime and auth |
| Category | Databases & Spreadsheets | Databases & Spreadsheets |
| Replaces | Retool, Google Sheets | Airtable, Google Sheets, Retool |
| GitHub stars | 4k | 107k |
| Language | Nodejs | TypeScript |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 6 days ago | 6 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Chartbrew
- No full-featured app builder; purely a charting and dashboard tool, not a Retool replacement for forms or CRUD
- Data transformation is limited compared to Retool's JavaScript transformer
- Alerts and anomaly detection are absent
- Team/SSO features require the paid cloud tier
Supabase
- Self-hosted Docker Compose stack is complex: 8+ services including Kong, GoTrue, PostgREST, Realtime
- Studio table editor is less polished than Airtable UX for non-technical users
- Edge Functions are limited to Deno; no Node.js runtime in the self-hosted edition
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Supabase for the larger community and ecosystem. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Supabase
Open-source Firebase alternative built on PostgreSQL with realtime and auth