---
id: 'api'
title: 'REST API'
description: 'Auto-generating REST API.'
sidebar_label: 'Overview'
video: 'https://www.youtube.com/v/rPAJJFdtPw0'
---

Supabase auto-generates an API directly from your database schema allowing you to connect to your database through a restful interface, directly from the browser.

The API is auto-generated from your database and is designed to get you building as fast as possible, without writing a single line of code.

You can use them directly from the browser (two-tier architecture), or as a complement to your own API server (three-tier architecture).

## Features [#rest-api-overview]

Supabase provides a RESTful API using [PostgREST](https://postgrest.org/). This is a very thin API layer on top of Postgres.
It exposes everything you need from a CRUD API at the URL `https://<project_ref>.supabase.co/rest/v1/`.

The REST interface is automatically reflected from your database's schema and is:

- **Instant and auto-generated.** <br />As you update your database the changes are immediately accessible through your API.
- **Self documenting.** <br />Supabase generates documentation in the Dashboard which updates as you make database changes.
- **Secure.** <br />The API is configured to work with PostgreSQL's Row Level Security, provisioned behind an API gateway with key-auth enabled.
- **Fast.** <br />Our benchmarks for basic reads are more than 300% faster than Firebase. The API is a very thin layer on top of Postgres, which does most of the heavy lifting.
- **Scalable.** <br />The API can serve thousands of simultaneous requests, and works well for Serverless workloads.

The reflected API is designed to retain as much of Postgres' capability as possible including:

- Basic CRUD operations (Create/Read/Update/Delete)
- Arbitrarily deep relationships among tables/views, functions that return table types can also nest related tables/views.
- Works with Postgres Views, Materialized Views and Foreign Tables
- Works with Postgres Functions
- User defined computed columns and computed relationships
- The Postgres security model - including Row Level Security, Roles, and Grants.

The REST API resolves all requests to a single SQL statement leading to fast response times and high throughput.

Reference:

- [Docs](https://postgrest.org/)
- [Source Code](https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest)

## API URL and keys

You can find the API URL and Keys in the [Dashboard](/dashboard/project/_/settings/api-keys).
