Supabase gives you a great Postgres, auth, and storage layer to build on. 23blocks gives you the business logic itself — a working auth flow, CRM, forms, files, and 20+ other blocks — as ready-made APIs. Open source, with a path to your own cloud when you outgrow shared infrastructure.
Prices and quotas change constantly on both sides — they're not a fair way to compare. What doesn't change is what you're actually adopting. Here's the structural difference.
| Dimension | Database-first approach | 23blocks |
|---|---|---|
| What you start with | A Postgres database, auth, and storage — primitives you assemble into your own business logic | Full business-logic blocks — auth flows, CRM, forms, files — already built |
| Source code | Open source | Open source (every block, July 31, 2026) |
| Adoption model | One project, one backend — you build outward from the database | Per-block adoption — add one block, or run the whole platform |
| Own infrastructure path | Self-host the open-source stack yourself | We deploy and maintain the platform on your cloud account, or you run our recipes yourself |
| What you pay for | Running their managed service | Running the platform — shared, in-a-box, or self-run. Never the software itself |
You didn't start your project because you wanted to build an auth system. You started it to ship a product.
Auth, CRM, forms, files, products, search, and more — each a complete backend API with the business logic already written, tested, and running in production. Skip the months of building what every product needs.
Every block's code becomes open source. Read it, audit it, fork it. The business you're building depends on code you can see — not a black box behind an API key.
Need just auth today? Add the auth block to your existing stack. Need the whole backend? Run the full platform. Either way, you're not locked into an all-in migration to get started.
Start on the shared platform to move fast. Outgrow it, and we deploy the same platform to your own cloud account and maintain it — no code rewrite, and rollback stays armed the whole way.
23blocks isn't the right fit for every project, and we'd rather tell you now than after you've adopted it.
Your data model is genuinely novel. If your product's core value is a custom schema and custom queries with no standard business logic around it, a raw Postgres-and-auth primitive gives you more room to design it your own way.
You want realtime subscriptions as a first-class primitive. Supabase's realtime layer on Postgres changefeeds is a strong, mature feature if live data sync is central to your app.
You want direct SQL access from day one. If your team thinks in queries and wants to write and tune Postgres directly against your own tables, a database-first tool keeps you closer to the metal.
You only need one primitive, not a business layer. If all you need is auth or file storage as a raw primitive — not full account management or a CRM workflow — a lighter primitive may be less to adopt.
If your product needs the business logic — not just the primitives — that's where 23blocks fits.
It depends on what you need. Supabase gives you a great Postgres-based backend with auth, storage, and realtime primitives you build on top of. 23blocks gives you the business logic itself — full auth flows, a CRM, forms, file management, and more — as ready-made blocks. If you want primitives to build with, Supabase is an excellent choice. If you want the business logic already built, 23blocks is the faster path.
Yes. On July 31, 2026, every 23blocks block becomes open source. Like Supabase, you can read the code, self-host it, and never worry about lock-in. Unlike a database-first stack, what you're reading is complete business functionality, not just a data layer.
Yes. Each block — auth, CRM, forms, files, products, search, and others — works independently with its own API. Add the one block you need today, and adopt more later, without committing to the entire platform upfront.
You graduate to 23blocks-in-a-Box on your own cloud account. We deploy and maintain it for you, or you run our deployment recipes yourself. The migration is reversible and requires no code rewrite — your data moves with parity checks, verified table by table.
Start free on the shared platform. Add one block or the whole backend. Graduate to your own infrastructure whenever you're ready — reversibly, no code rewrite.
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