If applicable, can anyone tell me why
If applicable, can anyone tell me why you're using Convex over e.g. Supabase? Just researching my options here!
12 Replies
From my experience, 2 main things:
1) With convex you don't have to write SQL but instead javascript/typescript a language that you probably master more than SQL and is more flexible. From that you also get end-to-end typings with your frontend.
2) The fact that convex is live by default simplifies a lot your frontend code and you are mostly sure to never had stale data
How's local development? Is it its own instance?
I did a demo with Supabase local development and it was lowkey a pain with Docker etc
Local development is a breeze with convex
you actually "create your own environment" remotely in 2 seconds and sync your local code to the convex server in watching mode with the convex cli
So you kinda don't host anything on your local machine except the server code
I won't bitch on Supabase, I have never used that tool, but in terms of DX I can assure you Convex is awesome
So how does it work with like DB schema updates?
With Python Django framework I'm used to migrations and such
You have a file dedicated to schemas and migrations can be done from imports or bulk edit
I advice you to set up a free convex and test for 15 min
You will see/understand far more than words and it's so easy to set up that it won't cost you a lot of time
in case you haven't seen it, i'll link https://www.convex.dev/convex-vs-supabase
I think a useful oversimplification is Supabase is what a BaaS looks like if you integrated popular components together. That gives people more confidence that the BaaS is more migratable. Supabase also pitches that their architecture makes these popular components more synergistic than if you tried to integrate them on your own.
Convex is more like if the BaaS was built from the ground up in ~2023. Convex curates particular abstractions to expose to the application developer. This approach probably means that the application developer experiences less bugs caused by the BaaS.
So, looking over web dev history, there are moments in time where one approach generally better suits your business than the other approach. Also, you may have a handful of particular use cases that really matter to you. For me, that's cache and realtime which I think Convex is a better fit for.
Thanks for your in depth thoughts
@Matt Luo great summary, great tweet. responded here to just try to help reinforce this: https://twitter.com/jamwt/status/1786116580079972531
Jamie Turner (@jamwt) on X
I love our users–this is spot on about @convex_dev and our mission. Rather than just bundling up the stuff you already know, Convex is a complete, product-centric reconsideration of how to replace all the backendy-stuff with a new, minimal, clean service. We're not satisfied to
Twitter
I've been out of the development world for a while so by my reference convex is all magic. A youtube video demoing convex was all that i needed to go all in. My business partner who has ran dev teams continues to be amazed the more we get into it and is thankful i totally switched up half our core tech stack. Convex has been the least friction, basically 0 compared to anything else we are using, i got past stuff so fast its all forgotten compared to standard issues with typescript, WSL, npm mono building, linux, vscode etc. So i assume anything else now is basically like 5 years behind.
And convex is my primary relationship lol.. I spent 43 hours in vscode last week and mostly interacting with convex.
Wow thanks guys. Seems like you're all really fond of the product you're using and promoting haha
Web Dev Cody
YouTube
Why I use Convex over Supabase as my BaaS
links to both services if you're interested.
https://convex.dev/
https://supabase.com/
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:29 - Setup
00:02:57 - Paradigm
00:06:46 - Schema
00:10:17 - ORM
00:15:07 - Functions
00:18:30 - Authentication
00:21:19 - Security
00:25:15 - Transactions
00:29:30 - Real Time
00:33:42 - Storage
00:35:28 - DX
00:37:20 - Local Support
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