TL;DR
Supabase is an excellent open-source backend — particularly if real-time subscriptions or custom vector queries over your own embeddings (pgvector) are priorities. Anythink is the stronger choice when you need payments, workflow automation, dashboard branding and a fully managed platform with flat pricing.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Anythink | Supabase |
|---|---|---|
| Database | ✓ PostgreSQL, typed schema | ✓ PostgreSQL, typed schema |
| Schema designer | ✓ Visual builder + CLI | ✓ Table editor + migrations |
| Workflow automation | ✓ Built-in engine (triggers, steps, cron) | ✗ Edge Functions + pg_cron (manual setup) |
| User auth | ✓ Built-in users, Apple and Google sign-in | ✓ Supabase Auth — many providers |
| Realtime subscriptions | ✗ Not yet | ✓ Core feature (Postgres changes) |
| Payments | ✓ Stripe Connect and Apple in-app purchases built in | ✗ Build it yourself |
| Secrets management | ✓ Encrypted, injected into workflows | ✓ Vault + environment variables |
| File storage | ✓ Built-in | ✓ Supabase Storage |
| CLI | ✓ Full surface (schema, data, secrets, auth) | ✓ Supabase CLI — migrations + deploy |
| Dashboard branding (colours, logos, menus) | ✓ Supported | ✗ Not supported |
| Managed cloud hosting | ✓ Fully managed | ✓ Supabase Cloud (most common) |
| Predictable pricing | ✓ Flat per-project, query allowance included | ✗ Usage-based tiers, overage charges |
| Vector / AI search | ✓ Semantic index on every entity, built automatically; find similar records via API, CLI and MCP | ✓ pgvector: store and query your own embeddings |
When Supabase Wins
Choose Supabase if:
- Real-time database subscriptions are central to your product
- You want to store your own embeddings and write custom vector queries in SQL (pgvector)
- You need a wide range of auth providers out of the box
- Open source licensing matters to you
When Anythink Wins
Choose Anythink if:
- You need Stripe payments without any additional integration work
- Workflow automation (triggers, cron, multi-step pipelines) is part of your product
- You are building a SaaS product where each customer sees only their own data, in a dashboard with your branding
- You want a single flat monthly price — one cost regardless of query volume
- You prefer a fully managed platform with minimal DevOps overhead
The Workflow Automation Difference
Supabase offers Edge Functions and pg_cron for automation, but these require separate deployment and configuration. Anythink has a visual workflow engine built in — you can create multi-step automations triggered by entity events, schedules, or API calls without writing or deploying any functions.
Pricing
Supabase uses tiered pricing with usage limits per tier. Exceeding those limits means upgrading or paying overages. Anythink uses flat project-based pricing — one predictable monthly cost that includes a defined API query allowance, so you know exactly what you are paying.
Conclusion
Both platforms are built on PostgreSQL and share a modern, developer-friendly philosophy. Supabase has a larger community, real-time subscriptions and more control over custom vector queries; Anythink builds a semantic index for you with no setup. Anythink is the more complete solution for founders building SaaS products that need payments, automations and dashboard branding without assembling a stack.
