head to head · open source
Appwrite vs NHost
Appwrite has 57,418 GitHub stars, 5,732 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NHost has 9,296 stars, 623 forks, 164 open issues and last shipped today. Appwrite leads on adoption by 518% (57,418 vs 9,296 stars). Appwrite is written in PHP under BSD-3-Clause; NHost is written in Go under MIT. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, NHost 7%. NHost was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (backend, backend-as-a-service, firebase, flutter), 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 | NHost | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 623 |
| 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 NHost if
- You want the NHost feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and NHost 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 NHost
Nhost is an open source backend as a service platform for modern application development, and the project describes itself as a Firebase alternative with GraphQL. It is built around PostgreSQL for data, Hasura for an instant GraphQL API, authentication, storage, and serverless functions written in Node.js with JavaScript or TypeScript. The project is distributed under the MIT license and is positioned in the developer tools category for build and deployment.
read the full NHost overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or NHost more popular?
Appwrite has 57,418 GitHub stars and NHost has 9,296. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and NHost free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and NHost under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and NHost?
Appwrite is written in PHP and NHost in Go. 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 NHost?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,418 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose NHost if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.