Minbase Product Vision

Executive Summary

Minbase represents the "anti-Supabase" - a radically simplified, developer-first backend solution that strips away complexity while maintaining production-grade capabilities. Built on the proven foundation of PostgreSQL + PostgREST + Traefik + Nginx, Minbase targets fullstack developers frustrated by feature bloat and vendor lock-in in existing Backend-as-a-Service platforms. It will be released as an open source product.

Core Stack:

PostgreSQL: Database layer with RLS for multi-tenant data isolation
PostgREST: Auto-generated REST API layer
Traefik: Reverse proxy with load balancing, rate limiting and SSL termination
Nginx: Static/SPA web server serving the frontend behind Traefik's edge
Docker & Docker Compose: Containerization and orchestration

Product Vision

"Every developer should be able to build and deploy a production backend in under 10 minutes, with full understanding and control of their stack."

Mission Statement

Minbase democratizes backend development by providing a transparent, minimal, and powerful alternative to complex BaaS platforms, enabling developers to focus on building features rather than fighting configuration complexity.

Core Philosophy

Radical Simplicity: Four core building blocks (PostgreSQL, PostgREST, Traefik, Nginx) plus Docker Compose as orchestration
Complete Transparency: No black boxes, full understanding of your stack
Production Ready: Enterprise-grade PostgreSQL with battle-tested components
Developer Control: Self-hostable with clear upgrade paths
Convention over Configuration: Smart defaults that just work

The core-stack architecture offers compelling advantages:

Direct database-to-API mapping eliminates middleware overhead
Auto-generated APIs from database schema reduce development time
Endpoints don't have to be tables: non-DB logic can live as Python stored functions exposed by PostgREST at /rpc/<name> — same PostgREST, same Traefik edge, no second app server (FastAPI/Flask) added to the stack
Standard PostgreSQL scaling techniques apply without proprietary limitations
Traefik provides proven load balancing, SSL termination, and rate limiting
Nginx serves static assets and the SPA behind Traefik's edge, keeping concerns separate (Traefik routes/terminates TLS, Nginx serves bytes)
Security implementation leverages PostgreSQL's mature Row Level Security, JWT authentication, and Traefik's battle-tested request filtering and security headers
The minimal attack surface actually enhances security compared to feature-rich platforms

MinBase can also be used for training students and junior engineers

Basic Tier (Development Focus)

Each of these variants will be shown as a series of Docker Compose files that increase in complexity. Initially, there will be just 2 containers, Postgres DB and Postgrest REST API. Later We will add a Traefik container to act as the Reverse Proxy server, then an Nginx container to serve the static/SPA frontend behind Traefik's edge.

Intermediate Tier (Production Deployment Focus)

Each of these variants will focus on topics that take us closer to the final configuration we can run in production.