How to create a database with Supabase

1. Go to https://supabase.com and click Start your project.
2. Sign in with your GitHub account or with your email.
3. Accept the permissions and you’re inside the Supabase dashboard.

If you don’t have a GitHub account, you can learn to create one in our GitHub for beginners tutorial.

A “project” in Supabase is your database plus the tools around it.

1. Click New project.
2. Give it a name (e.g. my-first-database).
3. Create a password for the database and save it somewhere safe (you’ll need it later).
4. Pick the region closest to you or your users (that makes your app faster).
5. Leave the Free plan and click Create new project.

Wait a minute or two while Supabase sets everything up. When it’s done, you’ll see your dashboard ready.

A table is like a spreadsheet: rows and columns. Let’s create one to store, for example, a to-do list.

1. In the left menu, open the Table Editor.
2. Click New table and give it a name (e.g. tasks).
3. Leave Enable Row Level Security turned on; it’s the recommended setup.
4. Add your columns. Each column is a piece of data. For example:

Column	Type	What for
title	text	The task’s name
done	bool	Whether it’s finished (yes/no)

5. Click Save. You now have your first table!

Supabase adds an id column and a created_at (creation date) on its own. Don’t delete them, they’re useful.

1. With your table open in the Table Editor, click Insert and then Insert row.
2. Type a title (e.g. “Learn Supabase”) and leave done as false.
3. Click Save.

That’s your first row of data! You can add more, edit them or delete them with a click, just like a spreadsheet. The difference is they now live on the internet and your app can read them.

For your app to talk to the database, you need two pieces of data that Supabase gives you:

1. In the menu, go to Project Settings and then API.
2. Copy the Project URL and the anon public key.
3. You use those two in your app to connect. Never share the secret key (service_role) in public.

Not sure how to write the connection code? No problem: tell an AI like Claude “connect this Supabase database to my project” and paste the URL and the public key. In our how to build an app with AI tutorial we use it step by step.

Problem	Fix
My project shows as “paused”	On the free plan it pauses after 1 week of inactivity; open it and click “Restore”
I don’t see my data	Confirm you’re on the right table inside the Table Editor
My app won’t connect	Check that you copied the Project URL and the anon public key correctly
I forgot the database password	You can reset it in Project Settings → Database