Kuzzle
Kuzzle is an open-source, self-hostable backend platform: a document-store API, real-time layer, and plugin framework. It ships SDKs, an admin console and a CLI. One-sentence value: Kuzzle provides real-time data, advanced search, security and extensibility so teams can ship web, mobile and IoT backends faster.
It targets small engineering teams and organisations that need full control over backend infrastructure, especially real-time apps, IoT, telemetry and custom data platforms. Kuzzle avoids rebuilding common backend primitives like authentication, roles, CRUD and realtime subscriptions while exposing unified REST, WebSocket and SDK APIs and built-in indexed full-text and geospatial search.
Use Cases
- Home automation dashboard with device state subscriptions and geofenced alerts.
- Personal realtime chat, notifications and local data search for side projects.
- Real-time operational dashboards for equipment monitoring and hypervision.
- Product analytics frontends combining full-text search with live event feeds.
- B2B white-label backend for multi-tenant device provisioning and digital twins.
Strengths
- Real-time subscriptions for push updates and live collaboration features.
- Document storage with Elasticsearch indexing for fast filtered search.
- Role-based access control and plugins for OpenID/LDAP authentication.
- Plugin system and SDKs to extend business logic and integrations.
- Admin console and CLI to manage indices, users and monitoring.
- Enterprise services reduce operational risk with support and training.
- Self-hosting suits on-prem or EU residency needs; Coolify makes deployment trivial.
Limitations
- Requires operating Kuzzle, Elasticsearch and Redis; ongoing patching and monitoring.
- Scaling and operations depend on Elasticsearch constraints and sizing.
- Smaller community and ecosystem than major managed backend alternatives.
- Release publishing inconsistencies observed between npm and GitHub (Unverified).
- Using Kuzzle APIs and plugins creates application stack coupling.
Final Thoughts
Try Kuzzle now if you need built-in real-time features plus Elasticsearch-powered search, and you can operate Elasticsearch and Redis. Wait if you require a fully managed SaaS with minimal operational responsibilities.
Choose a managed cloud when you want the vendor to handle operations, updates and scaling; managed offerings reduce operational burden and shift responsibility for backups and upgrades.