Edge Functions

Edge Functions are server-side TypeScript functions, distributed globally at the edge—close to your users. They can be used for listening to webhooks or integrating your Supabase project with third-parties like Stripe. Edge Functions are developed using Deno, which offers a few benefits to you as a developer:

• It is open source.
• It is portable. Supabase Edge Functions run locally, and on any other Deno-compatible platform (including self-hosted infrastructure).
• It is TypeScript first and supports WASM.
• Edge Functions are globally distributed for low-latency.

How it works

• Request enters an edge gateway (relay) — the gateway routes traffic, handles auth headers/JWT validation, and applies routing/traffic rules.
• Auth & policies are applied — the gateway (or your function) can validate Supabase JWTs, apply rate-limits, and centralize security checks before executing code.
• Edge runtime executes your function — the function runs on a regionally-distributed Edge Runtime node closest to the user for minimal latency.
• Integrations & data access — functions commonly call Supabase APIs (Auth, Postgres, Storage) or third-party APIs. For Postgres, prefer connection strategies suited for edge/serverless environments (see the connect-to-postgres guide).
• Observability and logs — invocations emit logs and metrics you can explore in the dashboard or downstream monitoring (Sentry, etc.).
• Response returns via the gateway — the gateway forwards the response back to the client and records request metadata.

Quick technical notes

• Runtime: Supabase Edge Runtime (Deno compatible runtime with TypeScript first). Functions are .ts files that export a handler.
• Local dev parity: Use Supabase CLI for a local runtime similar to production for faster iteration (supabase functions serve command).
• Global deployment: Deploy your Edge Functions via Supabase Dashboard, CLI or MCP.
• Cold starts & concurrency: cold starts are possible — design for short-lived, idempotent operations. Heavy long-running jobs should be moved to background workers.
• Database connections: treat Postgres like a remote, pooled service — use connection pools or serverless-friendly drivers.
• Secrets: store credentials in Supabase project secrets and access them via environment variables.

When to use Edge Functions

• Authenticated or public HTTP endpoints that need low latency.
• Webhook receivers (Stripe, GitHub, etc.).
• On-demand image or Open Graph generation.
• Small AI inference tasks or orchestrating calls to external LLM APIs (like OpenAI)
• Sending transactional emails.
• Building messaging bots for Slack, Discord, etc.

Get started

• Edge Functions quickstart: Create, test, and deploy your first Edge Function with the Supabase CLI.

Examples

Check out Supabase Edge Function Examples in GitHub or try these examples:

Supabase integration

• Securing Edge Functions: Declare which credentials your Edge Function accepts.
• Connect to Postgres: Connect to Postgres from Edge Functions.
• Type-Safe SQL with Kysely: Combine Kysely with Deno Postgres for a convenient developer experience when interacting directly with your Postgres database.
• With CORS headers: Send CORS headers for invoking from the browser.
• Building a RESTful Service API: Learn how to use HTTP methods and paths to build a RESTful service for managing tasks.
• Oak Server Middleware: Route requests with Oak server middleware.
• Web Stream: Stream Server-Sent Events from Edge Functions.
• Get User Location: Get user location data from user's IP address.
• Working with Supabase Storage: Read a file from Supabase Storage.
• Upload File: Process multipart/form-data.

Webhooks & payments

• Stripe Webhooks: Handle signed Stripe webhooks with Edge Functions.
• React Native with Stripe: Use Supabase and Stripe in a React Native app with Expo.
• Flutter with Stripe: Use Supabase and Stripe in a Flutter app.

AI & media

• Hugging Face: Access 100,000+ Machine Learning models.
• OpenAI: Use OpenAI in Edge Functions.
• Amazon Bedrock: Generate images with Amazon Bedrock in Edge Functions.
• Open Graph Image Generation: Generate Open Graph images with Deno and Supabase Edge Functions.
• OG Image Generation & Storage CDN Caching: Cache generated images with Supabase Storage CDN.
• Puppeteer: Generate screenshots with Puppeteer.

Bots & email

• Send emails: Send emails in Edge Functions with Resend.
• Discord Bot: Build a slash command Discord bot with Edge Functions.
• Telegram Bot: Build a Telegram bot with Edge Functions.
• Slack Bot Mention Edge Function: Handle Slack mentions in a Slack bot Edge Function.

Operations & security

• Monitoring with Sentry: Monitor Edge Functions with the Sentry Deno SDK.
• GitHub Actions: Deploy Edge Functions with GitHub Actions.
• Upstash Redis: Build an Edge Functions Counter with Upstash Redis.
• Rate Limiting: Rate-limit Edge Functions with Upstash Redis.
• Cloudflare Turnstile: Protect forms with Cloudflare Turnstile.