AI Development

Demystifying Supabase Authentication and Authorization

Learn the difference between authentication and authorization, explore Supabase’s auth methods, and implement secure user management in your app.

When building modern applications, handling authentication and authorization is fundamental. Supabase makes it easy by providing out-of-the-box solutions for user management, secure access, and granular permissions. In this article, we’ll break down these concepts, explore the authentication methods supported by Supabase, and provide a step-by-step guide for implementing authentication in your project.

Authentication vs. Authorization: Know the Difference

Although the terms authentication and authorization are often used interchangeably, they serve distinct purposes:

Authentication

Proving who you are. It’s the process of verifying a user’s identity, typically through credentials like a username, password, or social login.

Example: Logging into your account with your email and password.

Authorization