Fly Postgres: Managed Postgres Offering by Supabase and Fly.io

Supabase and Fly.io have collaborated to launch Fly Postgres, a managed Postgres offering. Fly Postgres includes all the features expected from a Supabase managed database, such as a full-featured Postgres database with over 40+ extensions, pgvector support for Vector/AI workloads, Supavisor (Postgres connection pooler), daily backups and point-in-time recovery, branching, observability, migrations, and a dashboard for managing the database.

Additionally, Fly Postgres provides auto-generated Data APIs for REST (using PostgREST) and GraphQL (using pg_graphql). The database is deployed within the Fly infrastructure, offering faster performance for data-intensive applications.

The Fly Postgres service is currently in the testing phase with early adopters. Once the service is stable, it will be fully available for use.

How Fly Postgres Works

Fly Postgres is built on top of Fly machines, which are lightweight Firecracker VMs. Supabase has created a single Docker image that includes all the necessary services to run a Supabase project within a container. This image is passed to the Fly Machines API to deploy the Supabase project.

Using Fly Machines, Supabase can suspend VMs when they're not in use and resume them within seconds, leading to cost savings and improved efficiency. Physical backups of all projects running on Fly are performed using WAL-G, and in the event of host or volume corruption, the project is restored to a new Fly host using the latest data in S3. AWS Health events are monitored to capture any host issues on AWS.

To authenticate users, the Supabase API initiates an OAuth flow with Fly, with the container identifying the Fly proxy IP.

Advantages of Fly Postgres

• Full-featured managed Postgres database with over 40+ extensions
• pgvector support for Vector/AI workloads
• Supavisor for Postgres connection pooling
• Daily backups and point-in-time recovery
• Branching, observability, and migrations
• Dashboard for managing the database
• Auto-generated Data APIs for REST and GraphQL
• Deployed within the Fly infrastructure for lower latency and faster performance

Overall, Fly Postgres offers a powerful and efficient solution for deploying and managing Postgres databases, making it an ideal choice for data-intensive applications.