# Supabase Alpha May 2020

[Supabase](https://yomu.fyi/company/supabase) · Paul Copplestone · Jun 1, 2020

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

Supabase announced its May 2020 alpha development updates following acceptance into a fully remote Y Combinator cohort and unexpected attention from Hacker News. Operating under a ship early and often philosophy, the team continued deploying functional changes despite ongoing alpha bugs and platform instability. This milestone includes a revamped user interface configured to support incoming product capabilities alongside an initial, experimental Table View designed to rival tools like Airtable. Furthermore, Supabase rolled out realtime listeners that allow developers to subscribe to database changes comparable to Firebase functionality. The platform also added instant RESTful APIs and auto-updating documentation generated dynamically by introspecting modifications to the underlying Postgres schema.

## Context

Supabase entered a fully remote Y Combinator cohort and received significant early community interest after being featured on Hacker News prior to its planned September launch.

## Approach / What changed

The team adopted an early shipping strategy, deploying an updated user interface, an initial table view, realtime database listeners, and Postgres schema introspection for automated APIs and documentation.

## Takeaways

- Supabase joined a fully remote Y Combinator cohort and experienced early public adoption ahead of its formal launch.
- The platform added realtime listeners to allow client applications to subscribe to database updates similarly to Firebase.
- Supabase introspects Postgres database schemas to instantly generate and update RESTful APIs alongside their documentation.

**Tags:** [Developer Experience](https://yomu.fyi/topic/developer-experience), [Open Source](https://yomu.fyi/topic/open-source), [Postgres](https://yomu.fyi/topic/postgres), [REST APIs](https://yomu.fyi/topic/rest-api)

[Read original post](https://supabase.com/blog/supabase-alpha-may-2020)