What is (was) Appwrite
Appwrite started out as a Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS) and in many ways, it still is. It offered things like databases, authentication, file storage, and cloud functions, basically the complexity of backend for an application. One of its biggest strengths? It’s fully open source and self-hostable!
This was Appwrite ages ago, but today, they are not just Backend as a service, they now have sites, you can deploy single page applications to Appwrite. And that is the MOAT of Appwrite, Appwrite quietly emerged as a powerful contender behind the likes of Vercel and in just a few years, it’s become a compelling all-in-one stack.
- Databases (relational)
- Cloud functions (major programming languages runtime support)
- Authentication
- File Storage
- Messaging, Notifications
- SDKs for many programming languages including mobile SDKs
And now static/single page applications. So you can fully integrate the backend and deploy the code within the Appwrite ecosystem.
Advantage Appwrite
Appwrite has a rich support for a ton of programming language SDKs, positioning it in a great spot for a complete Fullstack stack projects. Appwrite is now a complete stack, database, authentication, cloud functions, and now static sites.
This also puts Appwrite in a special place for developers, they love their community and it just can't get better with this.
The other competition was with Cloudflare too, I am not saying Appwrite is competing with Cloudflare. Cloudflare is solving a different problem, but even being the big player in cloud, having great ecosystem for developers, it lacks the richness in support for different programming languages and runtimes. Appwrite has solved one problem at its core and are one of the best Full-Stack provider for cloud as well as self-hosted services.
People said, PHP was dead! For those people, Appwrite exists in 2025! And is almost competing with standards of Vercel.