I've lost count of how many times I've written CRUD endpoints for new features and products. It's repetitive and time-consuming, and I haven't been satisfied with existing CRUD generators out there. This inspired me to build what I believe the developer world really needs: a flexible, database-agnostic API layer that provides just the right amount of abstraction. That's why I built Clarabase.
What is Clarabase?
Clarabase is a generic API layer that provides instant CRUD APIs using a hosted or self-hosted database. Basically you tell it the shape of your data, and it instantly produces a production-ready CRUD API. It's similar to (and inspired by) PostgREST. But Clarabase takes it further by:
- Supporting multiple databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, etc.)
- Allowing you to call your API using multiple protocols (REST, GraphQL, MQTT, gRPC, etc.)
- Using a single schema definition language (JSON Schema) to define schema for any database
How it Works in 2 Simple Steps
First - ✍️ Define Your Schema - there's a no-code schema editor provided that makes defining your schema simple
Then - 🚀 Start Building!
That's it, you instantly get a production-ready API with:
- No code and no deployments needed
- Full CRUD operations with validation, filtering, sorting, search, and pagination
- Autogenerated hosted API with multi-protocol support: use http/rest or graphql, mqtt, websockets, gRPC, etc.
Why Clarabase?
While there are many tools for building CRUD applications, existing solutions often force you to make difficult tradeoffs:
- Frameworks (i.e. Rails, Spring, etc.) are powerful but highly opinionated, requiring you to build everything their way
- Backend-as-a-Service providers can lead to vendor lock-in and make it difficult to change your codebase as needed
- Custom solutions are flexible but require significant maintenance and development time
Clarabase strikes a great balance: it handles the tedious CRUD operations while giving you complete flexibility to build the rest (pun intended) of your application. For example, here's a comparison of what you'd need to do to build a production-ready CRUD service manually vs with Clarabase:
What Clarabase is NOT
Clarabase is not trying to be your entire backend solution. It's a focused tool that does one thing well: providing an instant, production-ready API layer over your database. It's:
- Not a framework - no need to restructure your application
- Not a BaaS - but it makes backend dev faster and easier to maintain
- Not a database - it just abstracts database operations. You can use a self-hosted database or just use Clarabase's hosted db
Use Cases
1. MVP Development & Rapid Prototyping
- By eliminating boilerplate API development, you can launch and go-to-market faster
- Iterate quickly without having to immediately make major architectural decisions
- Perfect for hackathons and proof-of-concept projects
2. Small Teams & Startups
- Reduce backend maintenance burden for resource-constrained teams
- Scale seamlessly as your application grows
- Maintain flexibility to customize as needed
3. Feature Development in Larger Applications
- Quickly spin up APIs for new features without touching the core codebase
- Integrates easily into microservices architecture
- Can use to take an incremental approach to modernizing legacy applications
Getting Started
Sign up for a free account by visiting https://app.clarabase.com to create your first API. Clarabase is available for early access, and not all features are available yet. Excited to hear your thoughts and feedback!
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