A headless backend that becomes your self‑hosted Business OS
Collections, auth, multi-tenancy, permissions, an API, automation and an admin Studio — on your own server. Add extensions and it runs your business: CRM, invoicing, accounting, POS, e-commerce.
Use it headless. Use the extensions to replace your SaaS stack. Or do both.
First-party extensions
free, signed, reviewed
PostgreSQL database
all apps, one source of truth
Native binaries
Linux & macOS, x64 & arm64
No per-seat fees
self-hosted
Build any business app — self-hosted, modern, yours
The engine ships with everything every business application needs — Bun, Hono, PostgreSQL and Valkey on your own server. Activate extensions for common domains, or build custom logic on top.
Single Binary
One executable. Bun + Hono, with PostgreSQL and Valkey beside it. Runs on a €20 VPS, in Docker, or on Proxmox LXC with Backup Server hooks — no cloud account required.
Headless Engine
Collections, auth, permissions, a REST/RPC API over your data, automation, realtime and storage. No opinion about presentation — that is what extensions are for.
Online Schema Changes
Ghost DDL copies the table and swaps it in, so users keep working. Writes pause only for milliseconds at the swap — no maintenance windows.
Schema Branching
Make breaking schema changes on a branch: diff, review, preview, then merge. Built into the engine.
Multi-tenancy in Postgres
Tenant isolation is enforced by the database — FORCE row-level security keyed on a per-transaction setting — not by application filters.
AI Extension
The ai extension: OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama or Azure. Semantic search via pgvector, text-to-SQL, schema generation from natural language.
Bring Your Own Data
Import tables from an existing database into Zveltio's PostgreSQL. They become collections with admin UI, REST API and permissions — no rewrite.
Live TypeScript Types
One CLI command — zveltio generate-types — and every collection call is typed. No hand-written interfaces.
Your business stack, on your hardware.
Build it or borrow it.
Replace your SaaS stack
Activate the bundled plugins for the SaaS subscriptions you'd rather not pay for anymore.
| What you might be paying for | Zveltio plugin |
|---|---|
| Hosted CRM | crm |
| Accounting software | finance/accounting |
| Payroll service | hr/payroll |
| Hosted online store | ecommerce/store |
| Cloud point of sale | operations/pos |
| Hosted mail client | communications/mail |
| Hosted automation / integration platform | engine: /api/flows |
| Work-management approvals | workflow/approvals |
| Document template tools | content/document-templates |
| Serverless functions | developer/edge-functions |
| Headless CMS / site builder | content/pages |
| Hosted AI assistants | ai |
No per-seat fees: what you pay for is the hardware you run it on.
Build a vertical product
Build legal-tech, healthcare-CRM, real-estate-management, ag-tech, education-LMS, fintech-back-office. Don't rewrite auth + admin + permissions + audit for the 47th time.
The engine handles plumbing; you focus on domain logic. A vertical SaaS skeleton — collections + auth + RLS + admin UI + REST API — is configuration, not code: you write only the domain logic.
Custom internal tools
Intranet portals. Employee dashboards. Client area portals. Document workflows. Internal analytics. Approval chains tied to your specific process.
Self-hosted, owned, modifiable. No SaaS vendor reading your operations data.
Start as a backend. Grow into anything.
Zveltio is a backend-as-a-service at its core. What it becomes is decided by the extensions you install — and you can change your mind later without migrating.
Backend for your app
Web or mobile. REST/RPC, GraphQL, realtime and offline sync, with typed SDKs for TypeScript, React and Vue.
Headless CMS
Collections, media, drafts, translations and block-based pages — delivered over the API to any front end.
Business stack
CRM, invoicing, accounting, payroll, inventory, POS, e-commerce, e-invoicing — installed as extensions on the same data.
Your own product
Vertical SaaS, client portals, internal tools. Your domain logic as an extension, next to the core — not a fork.
More than a backend
- An admin Studio for the people who run the business, not only a data browser for developers
- Schema changes on live tables with only a millisecond write pause, and schema branches to review them first
- Automation flows with retry and dead-letter queue, plus sandboxed edge functions
- Ready-made business modules — accounting, payroll, POS — instead of building them yourself
- Every write in the audit trail, with GDPR export and erasure built in
More than a headless CMS
- Tenant isolation enforced by PostgreSQL row-level security, not by application filters
- Realtime subscriptions and offline-first sync for apps, not just content delivery
- AI through the ai extension: semantic search with pgvector, text-to-SQL, local models via Ollama
- Bring existing data along: import database tables, or migrate from popular CRM, docs and spreadsheet tools
- Signed extensions that add tables, routes, jobs and Studio pages — not only content types
Every feature is MIT-licensed and free to use.
Strengths and trade-offs
Where Zveltio is strong
- Yours to run. MIT-licensed and self-hosted: it runs on your hardware and the data never leaves it. No per-seat fees, no cloud account required.
- Isolation in the database. Tenant isolation is FORCE row-level security in PostgreSQL, keyed on a per-transaction setting — not an application filter. Hierarchical tenants: a parent reads its subtree and writes only its own node.
- Backend and business stack on the same data. The headless engine and the business extensions share one database, one permission model and one audit trail.
- Schema changes on live tables. Ghost DDL copies and swaps, so writes block only for milliseconds at the swap; schema branches get a diff, review, preview and merge first.
- Extensions are signed and contained. Ed25519 signatures verified at install; community code runs in a worker under a database role with no access to auth tables. Admin pages are declarative JSON, so no third-party JavaScript reaches the admin.
- Compliance built in. Audit trail on every write, GDPR export and erasure, per-field encryption, and national fiscal packs as extensions — e-invoicing, SAF-T and e-Transport ship today.
Where it is not there yet
- Beta. The extension API and marketplace flow are stable; engine internals and the Studio still move. No SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification.
- Small ecosystem. 56 first-party extensions; third-party submissions are reviewed by hand and the community is small.
Stop paying per seat. Start owning the platform.
Software agencies & consultancies
Skip the auth, admin, permissions and audit plumbing, and hand clients software they own.
SMEs replacing SaaS
Consolidate your SaaS stack onto one self-hosted platform — without per-seat fees.
Vertical SaaS founders
Legal-tech, real-estate, healthcare, ag-tech, education. Don't rewrite auth + admin + permissions for the 47th time.
Enterprises & public sector
Data-sovereignty requirements met. Data stays on your hardware. Audit trail, encryption, right-to-erasure built in.
The platform behind your business.
Build it. Plug it in. Own it forever.
One installer puts the engine on your server. Signed extensions add the business stack. Custom code lives next to the core. MIT-licensed. Yours.
Currently shipping …. APIs may evolve between beta releases; we publish migration notes in the changelog. Zveltio is a product of DaRe IT Systems S.R.L. — built for the world.