Appwrite

Appwrite is an open-source Backend-as-a-Service platform that groups the services an app usually needs into one project: databases, authentication, file storage, serverless functions, messaging, realtime events, and hosting for web frontends. Every service is reached through the same REST and GraphQL APIs and the same permission model, and client SDKs for web, Flutter, React Native, Apple, and Android sit alongside server SDKs for Node.js, Python, PHP, Go, Dart, Ruby, Kotlin, Swift, and .NET.

The database layer offers several engines in one project. TablesDB, the default, stores structured rows and columns with relationships, indexes, and row-level permissions; DocumentsDB holds schemaless JSON; and VectorsDB stores embeddings for similarity search. Since Appwrite 2.0 a project can also provision a native PostgreSQL or MySQL database that you query with your own driver, ORM, and migrations. Authentication, branded as Appwrite Auth, covers email and password, magic links, email and SMS codes, dozens of OAuth providers, anonymous sessions, teams, and multi-factor sign-in.

Beyond data and users, Functions run custom code in many language runtimes on HTTP calls, events, or schedules, Storage handles uploads with image transformations, Messaging sends email, SMS, and push notifications, and Sites builds and serves frameworks such as Next.js, Nuxt, and SvelteKit. A web console manages all of it, including data migrations from Firebase and Supabase, and an official MCP server lets AI coding agents create and manage the same resources.

Appwrite is BSD-3-Clause licensed and can be self-hosted with Docker Compose, which runs the API, workers, database, and cache as a set of containers on your own server. Appwrite Cloud is the managed alternative, with a free plan for small projects and paid plans priced per project with usage-based overages, plus dedicated database compute tiers for heavier workloads.