[semireg]

I’m familiar with firebase and an electron developer and I still don’t understand what this project does. I wish I did, because it seems it’d be interesting to me. Even the app that uses this (Presentator) is described in a way that leaves me grasping for “bit what does it DO?”

[resoluteteeth]

There is a bunch of software in this space like supabase, flat backend, and appwrite that attempts to be a generic self hosted backend for apps in a manner similar to firebase by providing data storage and authentication with a rest API in an integrated fashion, usually with a built in admin interface for schema design, user management, etc.

You can also think of them as software like postgrest but with the addition of authentication and other app oriented features, and with a JavaScript client library out if the box.

This program is doing the same thing in a more lightweight way as a single executable using sqlite.

The idea is that by using this type of generic backend software for your database and authentication, you can basically just write the remainder of a typical app or webapp entirely as client side/frontend software, which is something that you can also do with firebase, but this allows you to easily self host it without having to create your own custom backend software.

[semireg]

Ok, so it's a self-hosted CRUD boilerplate with auth written in Go? Or a self-hosted Notion but with less view/UI customization out of the box?

[resoluteteeth]

> Ok, so it's a self-hosted CRUD boilerplate with auth written in Go? Or a self-hosted Notion but with less view/UI customization out of the box?

I guess you could describe it as "CRUD boilerplate" although that could also make it sound like the main purpose is to provide database table/form views like Microsoft Access which isn't really accurate.

It provides a database rest API like PostgREST with authentication so that you can write whatever frontend you want for it.

Since you say that you're familiar with firebase, imagine you're writing an android app using react native or something that uses firebase as the backend to store users' posts (or whatever they are).

The idea is that if you want to self host it instead of using firebase, you just run this type of software on your server and it will provide the basic functions that any client side app would need on the backend: storage for users' data as well as handling accounts.

I don't think it's really that complicated; it's basically just an interlace to a database, but if you look at something like PostgREST that automatically creates a rest api for a database, you would probably think "wow, I could almost create an app just using this as the backend without having to create my own backend, but I would have to handle authentication/registration myself," so these types of platforms just go a little further and handle that as well.

[semireg]

Gotcha. Thank you for the explanation.

[sangnoir]

It can be used as a CRUD boilerplate for Go projects (where you extend it), alternatively you may use it as a standalone REST(-ish) API backend that integrates auth and storing & retrieving state from some other app in any language. It's similar to DjangoREST which can bw used in both modes (as a base for a project written in the same language, or purely as data layer interfaced via REST)