head to head · open source
Appwrite vs backend.ai
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars, 5,725 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. backend.ai has 669 stars, 183 forks, 1,617 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Appwrite leads on adoption by 8,480% (57,400 vs 669 stars). Appwrite is written in PHP 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%. backend.ai 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.
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Side by side
| Appwrite | backend.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 669 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 183 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- 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 is an open source backend platform that consolidates infrastructure services—authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, hosting, and real time capabilities—into a single, unified system. It runs as a self hosted service or via a managed cloud offering (Appwrite Cloud), targeting developers who want to avoid assembling and maintaining disparate backend tools.
read the full Appwrite overview →
About backend.ai
Backend.AI is an open source, container based computing cluster platform that hosts machine learning frameworks and diverse programming languages and allocates isolated multi tenant compute sessions on Docker or Podman with pluggable accelerator support behind REST and GraphQL APIs.
read the full backend.ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or backend.ai more popular?
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars and backend.ai has 669. 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 PHP 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 (57,400 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.