# PocketBase 67 Hacker News commenters recommended PocketBase and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** One-binary backend on SQLite with admin UI, auth and easy extensibility, suited to small to medium apps. Caveat: it struggles once requirements fall outside its features. ## Why people recommend it - Small to medium apps and prototypes (4 comments): "Pocketbase seems like a perfect fit for those small to medium sized projects" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076199)) "It's exactly the right level of medium complexity where Pocketbase shines." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078360)) "It's great for quick prototypes, MVPs, and simple apps." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076240)) - Easy extensibility through code and hooks (4 comments): "Pocketbase does an awesome job of providing extensibility, likely most of the stuff you want that's not fully out of the box can be added in 20 lines of code or so." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076528)) "The hooks are great, even relatively complex things like spinning up infrastructure is easy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076442)) "No you can setup everything (models and db migrations) with code, no need to use the gui" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078215)) - Built-in admin UI and auth (3 comments): "it is by far the easiest way IMO to create a maintainable, robust backend with direct auth integrations and a pleasant interface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46077451)) "It's a nice base (and nice project) when you need users management and a quick admin tool." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49446975)) "it's designed as a friendly but powerful GUI to quickly get a backend up and running." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078444)) - One binary, one SQLite file (2 comments): "It's a lot lighter than Postgres/supabase. I run it on a pi-5 and it works perfectly well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082239)) "One binary to manage one sqlite file is indeed quite a selling point" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46077818)) ## What people warn about - Breaks when requirements fall outside features (2 comments): "The catch is that the moment your requirements fall outside what the system supports, you are more or less f*cked." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076501)) "That factor alone would make me weary of overly relying on Pocketbase." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078328)) - Not ready for production; pre-1.0 changes (3 comments): "PocketBase is still under active development and therefore full backward compatibility is not guaranteed before reaching v1.0.0" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081141)) "It's a niche little product that's alpha-level quality and changes frequently" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076978)) "PocketBase is NOT recommended for production critical applications yet" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076682)) - Admin UI not optimised for phones (2 comments): "My biggest gripe with it by far is that the web interface is not phone-optimised at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076326)) "Pocketbase's admin UI is not optimised for phones at all" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46076359)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [InstantDB](https://hackerapproved.com/p/instant.md): 23 recommend - [PostgREST](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postgrest.md): 12 recommend - [Sheet Ninja](https://hackerapproved.com/p/sheet-ninja.md): 11 recommend - [Hasura](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hasura.md): 7 recommend - [PostGraphile](https://hackerapproved.com/p/postgraphile.md): 6 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "PocketBase", https://hackerapproved.com/p/pocketbase/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).