PostgreSQL
The reference relational DB. With Supabase, it's magic.
Strengths
- Full ACID: transactions, constraints, foreign keys, guaranteed integrity
- Native JSONB: hybrid relational + document storage in the same table
- Powerful extensions: pgvector (embeddings), PostGIS (geo), pg_cron
- Row Level Security (RLS): row-level access policies, native to Supabase
Limitations
- Complex production administration: backups, vacuum, monitoring = expertise
- Horizontal scaling (sharding) difficult, Citus or Neon for extreme needs
- Overkill for simple projects: SQLite or Turso often sufficient
Best for
- Applications with complex relational data and critical integrity
- AI projects needing pgvector for embeddings and semantic search