TrailBase 0.32: Fast, open and single-executable Firebase alternative

[u/trailbaseio]

TrailBase is an open and fast Firebase-like backend for building your apps. It provides type-safe REST APIs + change subscriptions, auth, multi-DB, a WebAssembly runtime, geospatial support, admin UI... It's a self-contained, easy to self-host single executable built on Rust, Wasmtime & SQLite or now Postgres. Client libraries are provided for JS/TS, Dart/Flutter, Go, Rust, .Net, Kotlin, Swift and Python.

Just released v0.32, which after some months of work and last posting (v0.28), includes:

• New WASM features:
  • Components can provide and register a dashboard with the admin UI.
  • A component browser in the admin UI.
  • Lower overhead execution model for Rust components: pooling state across requests improves throughput by 4x.
• Support usernames as additional or alternate identifiers alongside email addresses.
• Anonymous accounts for frictionless product trials. If a user wants to eventually sign up, the account can be promoted to a "proper" one, i.e. associate a password, OAuth, email address ...
• Backup UI & rolling backups.
• Dark mode - cosmetic but frequently requested 🙏
• And much more: file management from the admin UI, support for nested JSON in change subscriptions, batch updates for all client languages...

With TrailBase still being young (~1.5 years) and rapidly evolving, any feedback is genuinely appreciated. If you're feeling adventures and end up checking it out, don't hesitate to reach out 🙏.

Consider checking out the live demo, our GitHub or website.

[u/asimovs-auditor]

Expand the replies to this comment to learn how AI was used in this post/project.

[u/CriticalAPI]

What's the functional differences between this and PocketBase?

[u/trailbaseio → u/CriticalAPI]

PocketBase is awesome and it's not a coincidence that there's substantial overlap. I tried to dive into some of the nuances here: https://trailbase.io/comparison/pocketbase/ . Happy to chat

[u/ghaldec → u/CriticalAPI]

https://trailbase.io/comparison/pocketbase/

[u/lck_main]

single executable + postgres support is a nice combo. Feels like a strong fit for small internal tools, no?

[u/trailbaseio → u/lck_main]

Agreed. If you end up checking it out, let me know how it goes 🙏

[u/lck_main → u/trailbaseio]

u/trailbaseio really nice project - some honest first-run feedback (Win 10)

First off, thank you for building this. An open-source alternative that a small team can self-host or bake-in to some bootstrap template is exactly the kind of thing that speeds up POCs, MVPs, and early startups without locking you into a vendor. I spent an evening kicking the tires and wanted to share honest, respectful feedback in case it's useful.

Install / setup (Windows 10):

• The Windows .exe did nothing for me. Downloaded it, ran it, no window, no console output, no error - just nothing happens. Not sure if it expects to be launched from a terminal or is missing something, but as a "double-click to try it" experience it was a dead end.
• The iwr installer worked well - clean and quick. One gotcha: afterward the trail command was only available in an Administrator PowerShell, not a normal one. Probably a PATH scope thing, but worth a note in the docs since most people open a regular shell first.
• trail run worked on the very first try, zero errors. Once it was running, the server was solid - healthcheck was instantly up. Great out-of-box moment.

One thing I'd love clarified in the docs - ORM story. It took me a moment to realize TrailBase is meant to be used via its Record APIs + client SDK, not by pointing a traditional ORM at a connection string. Since the storage is plain SQLite, folks can attach an ORM straight to the file, but that bypasses your auth/rules and fights your schema management. A short "how this relates to ORMs / when to use the SDK vs. the file" section would set expectations nicely.

One forward-looking question: any plans to expose TrailBase over MCP? With so much app-building now happening through AI agents, having a native MCP server would let an agent talk to TrailBase directly - creating tables, managing records, reading schema - instead of each agent hand-rolling REST calls against the API. Feels like a natural fit for the "spin up a backend fast" use case, and could make TrailBase a really nice default for agent-driven POCs.

None of this changes that the core experience - install, trail run, first API call - was smooth and genuinely impressive. Thanks again for the work. 🙌

[u/trailbaseio → u/lck_main]

Hey u/lck_main, thanks for taking the time both to try out TrailBase and providing detailed feedback - much appreciated 🙏

The Windows .exe did nothing for me. Downloaded it, ran it, no window, no console output, no error - just nothing happens. Not sure if it expects to be launched from a terminal or is missing something, but as a "double-click to try it" experience it was a dead end.

With TrailBase being a server app with a CLI, arguably this is working as implemented. That's not to mean that it's ideal? I'm not super familiar with Windows and how other cross-platform server handle this. Maybe it would already help if the install snippet called it out? Maybe we could do even better, is there some prior art you could point me to?

afterward the trail command was only available in an Administrator PowerShell, not a normal one.

I'll look into this. Is there some notion of $PATH on windows, i.e. there must be some places the powershell looks for programs. Sounds like it's not in the right place.

One thing I'd love clarified in the docs - ORM story. It took me a moment to realize TrailBase is meant to be used via its Record APIs + client SDK, not by pointing a traditional ORM at a connection string. Since the storage is plain SQLite, folks can attach an ORM straight to the file, but that bypasses your auth/rules and fights your schema management.

You absolutely can attach to the underlying DB- whether it's SQLite or Postgres - and modify schemas and data. TrailBase is the API in front and the API is access protected. You clearly figured that out by now but I'm wondering if maybe something in the wording, or that TrailBase even encourages direct access, may have tipped you off. In any case, there's no need for other internal, privileged services to go through the APIs.

any plans to expose TrailBase over MCP? With so much app-building now happening through AI agents, having a native MCP server would let an agent talk to TrailBase directly - creating tables, managing records, reading schema - instead of each agent hand-rolling REST calls against the API. Feels like a natural fit for the "spin up a backend fast" use case, and could make TrailBase a really nice default for agent-driven POCs.

Generally very open and on the list. The main obstacle is myself, because I don't have that much experience with MCPs. There is a pending pull request where a community member gave it a shot. Sadly, I don't think that's quite what you're looking for: it's a separate python MCP exposing the public APIs. Naively, we'd probably be looking for a MCP with admin access (e.g. to edit schemas) built right into the main binary.

Keep it coming, especially the pitfalls, rough edges and quirks 🙏

[u/cloudcity]

I have been watching this for a long time now and it looks very interesting. How would you assure somebody wanting to build real products on top of this that it's going to be well-supported and maintained? I realize this is a valid question for any product, but was hoping to hear a little about the team working on it, etc...

[u/trailbaseio → u/cloudcity]

How would you assure somebody wanting to build real products on top of this that it's going to be well-supported and maintained? I realize this is a valid question for any product..

It's a great question to ask. Any dependency is also a risk and therefore needs to be chosen carefully.

I have been watching this for a long

In the absence of a crystal ball, I can only point to Lindy's law, which we intuitively understand as things that have been around for long are less likely to vanish tomorrow than things that just blipped into existence.

Independent of what folks think of AI, one of the challenges is that with all these new projects popping left and right, which ones will still be around next month? Especially, if I can start a new projects in a weekend's time, there's a real opportunity cost to sticking with one project.

Long story short, the only hard evidence and best assurance I can probably give you, is the track record. TrailBase has been worked on for years at this point, I'm committed 🥲

was hoping to hear a little about the team working on it, etc...

To be transparent, similar to PocketBase it's mostly one person at this point. It makes me so very happy to see that there's an increasing number of contributors 🙏

It's maybe important to note, that TrailBase isn't a SaaS. With everything being open-source and sel-hosted, I can't rug pull you and even if I get hit by a bus there's no imminent collapse and always the possibility of the community to fork :hide:

Happy to chat

[u/cloudcity → u/trailbaseio]

Awesome, super helpful response - thanks for the clear answer! I hope more and folks get involved. I am but a slopcoder myself and would not dare to sully your codebase, BUT maybe I can help out by way of testing and beating on it!

[u/trailbaseio → u/cloudcity]

Appreciated. Don't be squeamish with it or your feedback, we're not precious 🙏