Cube vs Supabase
| Tagline | Semantic layer and headless BI for building data apps on any database | Open-source Firebase alternative built on PostgreSQL with realtime and auth |
| Category | Databases & Spreadsheets | Databases & Spreadsheets |
| Replaces | Retool, Smartsheet, Google Sheets | Airtable, Google Sheets, Retool |
| GitHub stars | 18k | 78k |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 22 days ago | 17 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.
Cube
- Not an end-user spreadsheet; requires developer effort to define data models in YAML or JavaScript
- No built-in visual grid editor; intended to power custom-built frontends, not replace Airtable directly
- Pre-aggregation setup for large datasets requires careful tuning and database-specific knowledge
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. Supabase has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Supabase
Open-source Firebase alternative built on PostgreSQL with realtime and auth