head to head · open source
Appwrite vs backend.ai
Appwrite has 57,854 GitHub stars, 5,830 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. backend.ai has 677 stars, 185 forks, 1,617 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Appwrite leads on adoption by 8,446% (57,854 vs 677 stars). Appwrite is written in TypeScript under BSD-3-Clause; backend.ai is written in Python under LGPL-3.0. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, backend.ai 27%. Appwrite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (docker), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Appwrite | backend.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 58K | ★ 677 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 185 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 58K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick backend.ai if
- You want the backend.ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and backend.ai fits your workflow better
About Appwrite
Appwrite Appwrite is an open source, all in one development platform. Use built in backend infrastructure and web hosting, all from a single place. English 简体中文 Appwrite is an open source development platform for building web, mobile, and AI applications. It brings together backend infrastructure and web hosting in one place, so teams can build, ship, and scale without stitching together a fragmented stack. Appwrite is available as a managed cloud platform and can also be self hosted on infrastructure you control. With Appwrite, you can add authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, realtime…
read the full Appwrite overview →
About backend.ai
Backend.AI ========== Backend.AI is a streamlined, container based computing cluster platform that hosts popular computing/ML frameworks and diverse programming languages, with pluggable heterogeneous accelerator support including CUDA GPU, ROCm GPU, Rebellions, FuriosaAI, HyperAccel, Intel Gaudi, Tenstorrent, Google TPU, Graphcore IPU and other NPUs. It allocates and isolates the underlying computing resources for multi tenant computation sessions on demand or in batches with customizable job schedulers with its own orchestrator named "Sokovan". All its functions are exposed as REST and GraphQL APIs…
read the full backend.ai overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More Build & Deployment projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Build & Deployment field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or backend.ai more popular?
Appwrite has 57,854 GitHub stars and backend.ai has 677. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and backend.ai free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and backend.ai under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and backend.ai?
Appwrite is written in TypeScript and backend.ai in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Appwrite or backend.ai?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,854 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose backend.ai if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.