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Your initial comment presents Redbean as a comparable solution, which it's not; they serve very different use cases.

Redbean requires you to write server code; Pocketbase does not. Redbean does not offer a realtime database, authentication, an admin dashboard, integrated file storage, or an inbuilt API.

I like Redbean, but it's in a completely different "market sector". It's like comparing a kit car to a luxury car: yes, they both technically serve the same purpose, but one requires much less assembly and offers a much more usable experience out of the box.

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They are comparable solutions to the problem "Open-source backend in one file". I don't care at all about "realtime database, authentication" and whatever, I care about what the title of the post says. For that purpose, Redbean is a nice alternative.

> It's like comparing a kit car to a luxury car

If all I need is a bicycle, a kit car is already over the top but will do. A luxury car makes no sense. You're thinking like everyone has the same needs that you have or something.

Ah, I see - my apologies, I think there's an unfortunate misalignment over the word "backend."

When Pocketbase is talking about a backend, they're talking about something like Firebase, which is a complete backend-as-a-service that implements everything you need for a service where the majority of the logic is in the frontend; it's meant to involve as little backend engineering as possible.

You're referring to the more general, standard sense of the word "backend". I agree with the sibling comment that you're not necessarily wrong in offering Redbean as a point of comparison, but the target user of Pocketbase has limited overlap with the targeted user of Redbean; the people looking for a Firebase-like solution would not be served by Redbean, and your initial post could be read as suggesting that they could be.

I do think the use of the word "backend" here is unfortunate, because it's really referring to something much more specific than the conventional use of the term.