It's a lightweight replacement for Firebase. I That's why it is described as a backend, because it's primary feature is to act as a data store. If don't understand what a project does, and you're unfamiliar with the comparisons given (Firebase, Supabase), the right thing to do would bw to look up the comparisons.

I know you have user management, a database, and do something with files. As noted before the "backed-in files" isn't a commonly used phrase so i'm left with 2 pieces of meaningful info, neither of which is particularly notable because every multi-user app has both of those.

Firebase gives me a list of use cases https://firebase.google.com/use-cases and documentation whose left nav gives me a good insight into the high-level functionality it provides "authentication, storage, hosting, security rules, extensions, machine learning, etc"

I think it's safe to assume you don't provide all of those, but i don't know what subset you DO provide. As a result, if i give you the benefit of the doubt, telling me it's a "replacement for firebase" is not meaningful because i don't know what parts it can replace unless it's just the few listed in which case it's absolutely _not_ a replacement.

I'm not OP; I wasn't aware of the project until I read the HN headline.

"Lightweight replacement" also implies missing features, IMO. This project has - at the minimum - authentication, storage and hosting in a single binary that can be self-hosted. This absolutely can replace Firebase for some use-cases (e.g. on my LAN/homelab)

Aside: your tone is weirdly - and needlessly combative. If you see no value in this project to yourself, that is fine, but it appears to be making you angry for some unfathomable reason.

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?”

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.

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?

> 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.

Gotcha. Thank you for the explanation.

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)

You haven’t tried really hard:

> PocketBase could be used as a standalone app or as a Go framework/toolkit that enables you to build your own custom app specific business logic and still have a single portable executable at the end.

if it's used a standalone app then what functionality is it providing beyond "user admin". Like, what problem does it solve in that use case?

> a Go framework/toolkit that enables you to build your own custom app specific business logic

that definition applies to literally every framework and toolkit. It tells me nothing.

> and still have a single portable executable at the end.

You're quoting selectively in a way that elides meaningful parts of the sentence, and then stating that the description lacks meaning.

It provides an authenticated rest API (with a premade JavaScript client library) to an sqlite database, so you can store users' data similarly to how you might use firebase.