Appwrite

Appwrite is an open-source backend platform that gives developers the building blocks of an application backend without writing one. Authentication, databases, file storage, serverless functions, messaging, realtime subscriptions, and web hosting all run from a single self-hostable platform with a unified admin console.

The core appeal is the same as Firebase: you focus on your frontend and let Appwrite handle the backend concerns. Authentication supports email/password, magic links, phone, anonymous sessions, and more than 30 OAuth providers out of the box. The database, storage, and functions are accessed through SDKs available for nearly every language and framework: Flutter, React, Next.js, Vue, React Native, and many others.

Serverless functions run in multiple languages and let you execute custom backend logic in response to events or HTTP requests, all on your own infrastructure rather than a metered cloud function service.

Compared to Supabase, the main difference is the data model. Supabase is built on raw PostgreSQL and gives you full SQL. Appwrite uses its own document-style database abstraction, which some developers find faster to work with and others find limiting if they want direct database access. Appwrite’s single docker-compose deployment is also generally simpler to self-host than Supabase’s larger multi-service stack. With a BSD-3 licence and 56,000 GitHub stars, it is a well-supported choice for anyone wanting a Firebase-style backend they fully control.