A free, open-source, self-hosted backend platform for students, hobbyists, and indie developers building projects with fewer than ~100 users. No paid tiers. No hosted database bills. You own your data.
Platforms like Supabase and Firebase are excellent — until you cross a free-tier limit on a college project that will never have more than a handful of users. This project exists so that a student can spin up a real backend (database, auth, storage, API) in minutes, run it on their own laptop or a free-tier VM, and never think about a pricing page.
- SQLite as the storage engine — a single embedded database file, zero hosting cost, ACID-compliant, SQL-native. WAL mode handles concurrent access safely out of the box.
- CLI-first workflow — init a project, manage schema/migrations, and connect frameworks (Next.js, Python, Prisma, Vercel) from the terminal.
- Dashboard (Web App / PWA) — a Supabase-style visual layer: table explorer, SQL editor, auth management, storage, logs, and settings.
- REST API — auto-generated from your schema, so any framework can talk to your backend with plain HTTP calls. No mandatory SDK.
- PostgreSQL compatibility as a future goal — SQLite today, with a clear migration path once a project outgrows single-node scale.
Students, beginners, and indie developers building personal or college projects — not production apps expecting thousands of concurrent users. If your project outgrows ~100 users or needs multi-region availability, this project's docs will point you toward migrating to Postgres.
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| CLI / Python package | Create/manage projects, generate config files, manage schema & migrations, connect apps to the backend |
| Dashboard | Database explorer, SQL editor, auth management, user management, API key management, storage management, project settings, logs & monitoring |
| Core engine | SQLite (WAL mode) + REST API layer + session-based auth |
pip install <package-name>
# create a new backend project
<cli> init my-project
# push your schema (from a schema file, or via SQL directly)
<cli> db push
# start the local server (REST API + dashboard)
<cli> start
# back up your database
<cli> backupYour app (Next.js, Python, etc.) then talks to the local REST API just like it would talk to Supabase — fetch/requests calls against auto-generated table endpoints.
- Don't rebuild solved problems. Password hashing (argon2), SQL execution (SQLite), containerization (Docker) — use battle-tested tools, not custom implementations.
- Zero cost by default. No component in the MVP requires a paid service.
- Data ownership. Your data lives in a file you control, not a vendor's cloud.
- Honest tradeoffs. This is a single-node, self-hosted tool. It won't pretend to be infinitely scalable — the docs will say plainly when it's time to migrate to Postgres.
- Simple now, extensible later. MVP scope is deliberately small; see
PLAN.mdfor what's in v1 vs. deferred.
Early planning / pre-MVP. See PLAN.md for roadmap and ARCHITECTURE.md for technical design.
Open source (license TBD — MIT or Apache 2.0 recommended for maximum adoption).
Not yet open for contributions — MVP is being scoped and built first. This will be updated once the core is stable enough for outside contributors.