nSelf

A self-hosted backend in one Go binary

nSelf gives you the equivalent of a commercial backend-as-a-service on infrastructure you own. It started as a 200-line deploy script written to replace three managed providers, and grew into a CLI whose real product is everything that happens after the stack works once: upgrades, backups, health checks and the refusal to leave a system half-migrated.

nself.org Source on GitHub Docs

MIT licensed. Requires Docker. macOS, Linux and WSL.

Quickstart

# install (macOS)
brew install nself-org/nself/nself

# install (Linux / WSL2)
curl -fsSL https://install.nself.org | bash

# create a project and start the stack
mkdir my-backend && cd my-backend
nself init
nself build
nself start

Current version and changelog onGitHub releases.

What it does

The stack, from one command

PostgreSQL, Hasura GraphQL, auth and Nginx as the always-on core. Add Redis, MinIO object storage and search when you need them. Run it locally, on a VPS or on any cloud.

No broken middle state

Every operation is a state machine with health gates, so a failed upgrade or restore leaves the previous working state in place. Backup drills are part of the tool, not an afterthought.

Core plus plugins

Core stays small. Plugins declare the tables and capabilities they need before they run, so conflicts are caught at install time, not in production.

Products on the same backend

Reference apps such as Task, Chat, Sentry and Claw run on the stack, along with free MIT plugins and paid bundles.

Writing

Open source, MIT licensed

The CLI, the free plugins and the reference apps are all public on GitHub.

github.com/nself-org/cli →