Edge Functions - Supabase

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 simple .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.

<div className="not-prose"> <Button size="medium" asChild> <a href="/docs/guides/functions/quickstart">Get started</a> </Button> </div>

Examples

Check out the Edge Function Examples in our GitHub repository.

<div className="grid md:grid-cols-12 gap-4 not-prose"> {[ { name: 'With supabase-js', description: 'Use the Supabase client inside your Edge Function.', href: '/guides/functions/auth', }, { name: 'Type-Safe SQL with Kysely', description: 'Combining Kysely with Deno Postgres gives you a convenient developer experience for interacting directly with your Postgres database.', href: '/guides/functions/kysely-postgres', }, { name: 'Monitoring with Sentry', description: 'Monitor Edge Functions with the Sentry Deno SDK.', href: '/guides/functions/examples/sentry-monitoring', }, { name: 'With CORS headers', description: 'Send CORS headers for invoking from the browser.', href: '/guides/functions/cors', }, { name: 'React Native with Stripe', description: 'Full example for using Supabase and Stripe, with Expo.', href: 'https://github.com/supabase-community/expo-stripe-payments-with-supabase-functions', }, { name: 'Flutter with Stripe', description: 'Full example for using Supabase and Stripe, with Flutter.', href: 'https://github.com/supabase-community/flutter-stripe-payments-with-supabase-functions', }, { name: 'Building a RESTful Service API', description: 'Learn how to use HTTP methods and paths to build a RESTful service for managing tasks.', href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/blob/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/restful-tasks/index.ts', }, { name: 'Working with Supabase Storage', description: 'An example on reading a file from Supabase Storage.', href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/blob/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/read-storage/index.ts', }, { name: 'Open Graph Image Generation', description: 'Generate Open Graph images with Deno and Supabase Edge Functions.', href: '/guides/functions/examples/og-image', }, { name: 'OG Image Generation & Storage CDN Caching', description: 'Cache generated images with Supabase Storage CDN.', href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/tree/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/og-image-with-storage-cdn', }, { name: 'Get User Location', description: `Get user location data from user's IP address.`, href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/tree/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/location', }, { name: 'Cloudflare Turnstile', description: `Protecting Forms with Cloudflare Turnstile.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/cloudflare-turnstile', }, { name: 'Connect to Postgres', description: `Connecting to Postgres from Edge Functions.`, href: '/guides/functions/connect-to-postgres', }, { name: 'GitHub Actions', description: `Deploying Edge Functions with GitHub Actions.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/github-actions', }, { name: 'Oak Server Middleware', description: `Request Routing with Oak server middleware.`, href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/tree/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/oak-server', }, { name: 'Hugging Face', description: `Access 100,000+ Machine Learning models.`, href: '/guides/ai/examples/huggingface-image-captioning', }, { name: 'Amazon Bedrock', description: `Amazon Bedrock Image Generator`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/amazon-bedrock-image-generator', }, { name: 'OpenAI', description: `Using OpenAI in Edge Functions.`, href: '/guides/ai/examples/openai', }, { name: 'Stripe Webhooks', description: `Handling signed Stripe Webhooks with Edge Functions.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/stripe-webhooks', }, { name: 'Send emails', description: `Send emails in Edge Functions with Resend.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/send-emails', }, { name: 'Web Stream', description: `Server-Sent Events in Edge Functions.`, href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/tree/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/streams', }, { name: 'Puppeteer', description: `Generate screenshots with Puppeteer.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/screenshots', }, { name: 'Discord Bot', description: `Building a Slash Command Discord Bot with Edge Functions.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/discord-bot', }, { name: 'Telegram Bot', description: `Building a Telegram Bot with Edge Functions.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/telegram-bot', }, { name: 'Upload File', description: `Process multipart/form-data.`, href: 'https://github.com/supabase/supabase/tree/master/examples/edge-functions/supabase/functions/file-upload-storage', }, { name: 'Upstash Redis', description: `Build an Edge Functions Counter with Upstash Redis.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/upstash-redis', }, { name: 'Rate Limiting', description: `Rate Limiting Edge Functions with Upstash Redis.`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/rate-limiting', }, { name: 'Slack Bot Mention Edge Function', description: `Slack Bot handling Slack mentions in Edge Function`, href: '/guides/functions/examples/slack-bot-mention', }, ].map((x) => ( <div className="col-span-4" key={x.href}> <Link href={x.href} passHref> <GlassPanel icon={'/docs/img/icons/github-icon'} hasLightIcon={true} title={x.name}> {x.description} </GlassPanel> </Link> </div> ))} </div>