Supabase Edge Functions Has a Free Deno Runtime — Deploy Serverless TypeScript Next to Your Database

The Serverless + Database Problem

AWS Lambda + RDS: cold starts + database connections = slow. Vercel Functions + Neon: two platforms to manage. Every combo has a latency tax.

Supabase Edge Functions run on Deno Deploy — in the same infrastructure as your database. Minimal latency. TypeScript native.

What Supabase Edge Functions Give You

Simple Function

import { serve } from 'https://deno.land/std/http/server.ts';

serve(async (req) => {
  const { name } = await req.json();
  return new Response(
    JSON.stringify({ message: `Hello ${name}!` }),
    { headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' } },
  );
});

Direct Database Access

import { createClient } from 'https://esm.sh/@supabase/supabase-js';

serve(async (req) => {
  const supabase = createClient(
    Deno.env.get('SUPABASE_URL')!,
    Deno.env.get('SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY')!,
  );

  const { data: users } = await supabase
    .from('users')
    .select('*')
    .limit(10);

  return new Response(JSON.stringify(users));
});

Database client is pre-configured. No connection string management.

Webhooks

serve(async (req) => {
  const payload = await req.json();

  // Process Stripe webhook
  if (payload.type === 'checkout.session.completed') {
    const supabase = createClient(/* ... */);
    await supabase.from('orders').insert({
      stripe_session: payload.data.object.id,
      amount: payload.data.object.amount_total,
    });
  }

  return new Response('OK');
});

Scheduled Functions (Cron)

-- In Supabase dashboard, schedule a cron job
select cron.schedule('cleanup', '0 * * * *', $$
  select net.http_post(
    url := 'https://your-project.supabase.co/functions/v1/cleanup',
    headers := '{"Authorization": "Bearer ..."}'::jsonb
  );
$$);

Deploy

supabase functions deploy my-function

One command. Deployed globally.

Free Tier

• 500K invocations/month
• 2M edge function requests
• Direct database access included

Quick Start

supabase init
supabase functions new hello-world
supabase functions serve  # Local dev
supabase functions deploy hello-world

Why This Matters

Serverless functions should be as close to your data as possible. Supabase Edge Functions eliminate the network hop between your function and your database.

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