Supabase Capstone Tutorial: Free Tier Guide (BSIT 2026)

Supabase is Firebase’s open-source alternative that BSIT capstones should default to in 2026: real PostgreSQL (not NoSQL), built-in Auth, file Storage, and Row Level Security (RLS) for access control, all free at student scale. This tutorial gets you from zero to a working capstone backend in ~2 hours of focused work.

Why Supabase for BSIT Capstones

• Real PostgreSQL, panels recognize SQL; familiar from your DBMS course
• Built-in Auth, email/password, Google, Facebook, all configured in dashboard
• Row Level Security (RLS), declarative access control (“user can only see their own orders”)
• Auto-generated REST + GraphQL API, no backend code needed for CRUD
• Real-time subscriptions, push updates to clients without polling
• Free tier sufficient for capstone scale, no credit card needed

Setup: Create Project (5 min)

1. Go to supabase.com, sign up with GitHub (no credit card)
2. Click “New Project”, give it a name, set a strong DB password
3. Choose region: Singapore (closest to PH)
4. Wait 2 minutes for provisioning
5. Copy your Project URL and anon public key from Settings, API

Schema: Create Tables (10 min)

In the Supabase dashboard, open SQL Editor and run:

-- Products table
CREATE TABLE products (
  id BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  name TEXT NOT NULL,
  price NUMERIC(10,2) NOT NULL,
  stock INTEGER DEFAULT 0,
  created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW()
);

-- Orders table
CREATE TABLE orders (
  id BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  user_id UUID REFERENCES auth.users NOT NULL,
  total NUMERIC(10,2),
  status TEXT DEFAULT 'pending',
  created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW()
);

-- Order items
CREATE TABLE order_items (
  id BIGSERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  order_id BIGINT REFERENCES orders ON DELETE CASCADE,
  product_id BIGINT REFERENCES products,
  qty INTEGER NOT NULL,
  price NUMERIC(10,2) NOT NULL
);

-- Enable Row Level Security
ALTER TABLE orders ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;
ALTER TABLE order_items ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;

-- Users can only see their own orders
CREATE POLICY "Users see own orders" ON orders
  FOR SELECT USING (auth.uid() = user_id);

-- Users can insert their own orders
CREATE POLICY "Users create own orders" ON orders
  FOR INSERT WITH CHECK (auth.uid() = user_id);

Frontend: Query from JavaScript / React / Flutter

Install the client:

# JavaScript / React / Next.js
npm install @supabase/supabase-js

# Flutter
flutter pub add supabase_flutter

# Python (for Django / Flask backend)
pip install supabase

JavaScript example, list products + sign in:

import { createClient } from '@supabase/supabase-js'

const supabase = createClient(
  'https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co',
  'YOUR_ANON_KEY'
)

// Sign up
const { data, error } = await supabase.auth.signUp({
  email: '[email protected]',
  password: 'mypassword123'
})

// Sign in
const { data, error } = await supabase.auth.signInWithPassword({
  email: '[email protected]',
  password: 'mypassword123'
})

// Query products
const { data: products } = await supabase
  .from('products')
  .select('*')
  .order('created_at', { ascending: false })

// Insert order (RLS auto-checks user_id matches)
const { error } = await supabase
  .from('orders')
  .insert({ user_id: supabase.auth.user().id, total: 250 })

File Storage: Upload Images

// Create a bucket in Supabase dashboard first: Storage > New Bucket > "product-images"

// Upload
const { data, error } = await supabase.storage
  .from('product-images')
  .upload('product-1.jpg', fileBlob)

// Get public URL
const { data } = supabase.storage
  .from('product-images')
  .getPublicUrl('product-1.jpg')
console.log(data.publicUrl)  // https://YOUR_PROJECT.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/product-images/product-1.jpg

Free Tier Limits and When You Hit Them

Project auto-pause: if no activity for 7 days, Supabase pauses your project. One-click resume from dashboard, no data loss. Plan around defense day with a “wake-up” query 1 hour before.

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