Feature
A production PostgreSQL database, generated automatically
Describe your data model in plain English. Backenly creates the schema, tables, relationships, and security policies automatically.
- Generated
- Database Setup
- Works with
- Any frontend
- Plan
- Free to start
What is Database Setup?
Backenly's database setup feature automatically generates a complete PostgreSQL database schema from your natural language description. You describe what data your application needs and how it is related — Backenly generates the tables, columns, data types, foreign key relationships, indexes, and row-level security policies. No schema design sessions, no hand-written migration files. What you get is ordinary PostgreSQL: query it with standard SQL, or through the same PostgREST grammar Supabase serves, with embedded resources and the full filter vocabulary. The generation replaces the design work, not the API you already know.
How it works
When you describe your backend, Backenly's AI identifies the entities in your description and the relationships between them. It selects appropriate PostgreSQL data types for each field, creates proper foreign key constraints to maintain referential integrity, adds indexes for common query patterns, and applies row-level security policies to protect your data at the database level.
Why it matters
Database design is time-consuming and error-prone. Getting the schema right requires experience — understanding normalization, choosing the right data types, designing for query performance, and implementing security correctly. Backenly handles all of this automatically, giving you a production-grade schema without the weeks of work.
In practice
The test of a schema tool is not creating tables — it is changing them once they hold live data. Ask Backenly to "add a comments table, each task can have multiple comments" and it plans the change against your live backend: the new table, the foreign keys, the APIs, and policies consistent with your existing rules, applied as governed steps and verified afterward. Ask it to "drop the projects table" and it refuses to run silently: an approval card shows exactly how many live rows are affected and whether the data is recoverable, and nothing happens until you explicitly confirm. Every change — additive or destructive — gets a restore point, so the schema can be rolled back to any saved version. Each project's schema is also physically isolated in its own PostgreSQL namespace, so no bug or query can ever cross between projects.
What you get
Normalized schema design
Backenly generates properly normalized tables — eliminating data duplication and ensuring referential integrity through correct use of foreign keys and join tables.
Appropriate data types
The AI selects correct PostgreSQL data types for each field — UUIDs for IDs, timestamps with timezone for dates, JSONB for flexible data, text vs. varchar as appropriate.
Row-level security
Backenly automatically generates PostgreSQL row-level security policies so each user only sees their own data. You don't need to implement access control in your API code.
Schema evolution
Need to add a column or a new table? Describe the change and Backenly updates the schema safely — with migration tracking and the ability to roll back.
Common questions
Does Backenly use PostgreSQL?
Yes. Backenly uses PostgreSQL — the industry-standard open-source relational database. Your data is stored in a properly isolated PostgreSQL schema per project.
Can I access the database directly?
Yes. You can provision a read-only PostgreSQL connection string on demand, and arm a read-write one explicitly from the dashboard — both scoped to your project’s schema. Full pg_dump exports are available any time, and read-only SQL (joins, aggregates, window functions, CTEs, EXPLAIN) runs from the CLI and over MCP. What Backenly governs is structural change: schema mutations go through planned, verified, reversible actions rather than ad-hoc DDL — so your data is portable, while your schema stays accountable.
What happens to my data if I upgrade or downgrade my plan?
Your data is preserved across plan changes. Upgrading gives you more storage and capacity; downgrading retains your data within the limits of the new plan.