Most devs agree that Replit's built-in Neon database is not ideal. r/replit is full of complaints about losing access to the DB, randomly getting disconnected, the list goes on.
For my new Replit projects, I want to find the perfect database solution. I need something where I can define my data models, and the rest is done for me. This mythical service would create tables based on my data models and generate the APIs that my frontend uses to read/write to the tables.
The first thing that came to mind was Supabase. The landing page proclaims that you can "Start your project with a Postgres database, Authentication and instant APIs". That's exactly what I was looking for.
It was surprisingly easy to integrate Supabase with my Replit project. Supabase has a dedicated Replit page on their docs. I just followed the steps outlined there.
Although the setup was frictionless, maintaining the database required investing a lot of time into learning Postgres. I was spending hours reading through the docs, figuring out how to index columns, set up read-only replicas and partition tables.
I started to realize that Supabase is great for going from 0 to 1, but it doesn't fully automate the process of scaling your backend. You have to implement your own indexes, read-replicas and do everything else that goes into building a fast, reliable database. I have no employees at my startup, so I have to think about sales, customer support, the company finances, the product roadmap and a billion other things. As much as I'd love to dive into the docs and fine tune my DB, I don't have the time. I need a service that does all that for me.
I found a web app building platform on X called Gadget. They offer the same table and API generation as Supabase, with the added bonus of handling the headache of making your backend fast and reliable. Gadget has 24/7 monitoring, database auto-indexing and 99.99% uptime. You can also build the app’s frontend with Gadget, but I’m invested in the Replit UI & agent. I won’t touch that part of Gadget for now.
Gadget’s DX is excellent. Devs have been building for the web for 30 years. I can't believe that we're only now getting a crisp GUI that lets you build a database (something that pretty much every web app has). Even a non-dev like myself was able to understand what was going on without too much trouble.
Another awesome thing about Gadget was the assistant. Bill Gates once said “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Bill and I see eye to eye here. I am incurably lazy, which is why I used Gadget’s excellent assistant to do all the work for me. I took screenshots of my data models from Supabase and prompted the Gadget assistant to recreate models based on the attached images. In two minutes, I had recreated my Supabase database in Gadget.
One killer feature is Gadget’s auto docs. This is an insanely helpful tool when I want to sync my Gadget backend with my Replit front end. Here’s an example of the docs explaining how to get a blog post by ID using the auto-generated API:
Most docs are way too general to be of any help. The auto docs were great because I could just copy/paste the API calls into Replit without having to change the code in any way.
I’m constantly inundated with ads for tools that get me from 0 to 1 in the blink of an eye. Supabase is great for getting a weekend project off the ground. I found that Gadget gives you the ability to go beyond a prototype, and build something that could get real traction.
So that's what I think so far. Hit me up if you've also tried using Gadget with Replit, would love to hear how it went for you.
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