PocketBase

PocketBase ships as prebuilt single-file executables for macOS, Windows, and Linux across amd64, arm64, and other architectures. Because it is written in Go, you can also build a native executable for any supported Go build target. There is no desktop or mobile client — apps talk to the backend through the REST API and the official SDKs.

PocketBase includes built-in user management with email/password (or a custom unique identity field such as username) and OAuth2 login via providers like Google, GitHub, and Discord. Authentication uses stateless JWT tokens sent in the Authorization header, so there are no server-side sessions and no logout endpoint — clients simply discard the token.

Yes. You can extend PocketBase with JavaScript using the built-in JS VM plugin to add custom routes, event hooks, and business logic without recompiling. Alternatively, you can use PocketBase as a Go framework, import it in your own main.go, and build a single portable executable with custom Go logic.

PocketBase exposes a REST-ish API for CRUD operations, authentication, file uploads, and realtime subscriptions, plus official SDK clients for JavaScript and Dart. Realtime subscriptions use WebSocket connections to stream record changes to clients. The pocketbase executable also provides a CLI with commands such as serve to run the server.

PocketBase runs as a single executable with an embedded SQLite database, so no separate database server is needed. You can run it on any platform with a prebuilt binary. To build from source you need Go 1.25 or newer, and the pure-Go SQLite driver supports static cross-compilation with CGO_ENABLED=0.