Backend as a Service
1 open source tools compared. Sorted by stars. Scroll down for our analysis.
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
| Tool | Stars | Velocity | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
 Appwrite Complete cloud infrastructure for web, mobile, and AI apps | 56.9k | +104/wk | 91 |
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Our Analysis
Appwrite gives you auth, database, storage, functions, and messaging as a single self-hosted backend platform, so you don't have to build it all from scratch. It's an open source Firebase: one service instead of stitching together five. The self-hosted version is free with all features under BSD-3-Clause. Appwrite Cloud has a free tier (75K monthly active users, 10GB storage, 2GB bandwidth) and paid plans starting at $15/mo for Pro. Self-hosting runs via Docker Compose. The install script handles everything, but you're running 15+ containers (database, cache, workers, etc.). It works out of the box but the resource requirements are real, 4GB+ RAM minimum. Solo developers: Appwrite Cloud free tier is generous enough for most side projects. Small teams: self-host for unlimited everything or use Cloud Pro at $15/mo. Growing teams: self-host on your own infrastructure for full control. The catch: Appwrite tries to be everything: auth, database, storage, functions, messaging, real-time. Jack of all trades. If you need any one of those features at depth (complex queries, advanced auth flows, heavy file processing), you'll hit limitations before you would with a specialized tool. It's excellent for MVPs and small-to-medium apps. For complex production systems, you'll likely outgrow parts of it.