Welcome to Platformatic
Welcome to the Platformatic documentation. Platformatic is an open-source platform designed to simplify backend development by providing tools to quickly build and deploy APIs with GraphQL, REST, and SQL capabilities.
It enhances productivity through features like auto-generated schemas, a built-in authorization system, and easy integration with existing databases and frontend frameworks
Why Choose Platformatic?
Platformatic enables developers to efficiently develop and run APIs at scale. Historically, API developers have had to repetitively build infrastructure to satisfy foundational requirements, like authentication, authorization, caching, and connection to databases, and have had to manage microservices with technologies such as service mesh or centralized registries.
This is time consuming, and painstakingly complex. With growing demands of SaaS applications, the amount of API permutations has grown exponentially and has become a development bottleneck. This has led large organizations to create dedicated platform API engineering teams to help teams deliver on business demands.
At Platformatic, Our goal is to make API development simple: we aim is to remove all friction from the day-to-day of backend developers.
Platformatic Service
A Platformatic Service is an HTTP server based on Fastify that allows developers to build robust APIs with Node.js. With Platformatic Service you can:
- Add custom functionality in a Fastify plugin
- Write plugins in JavaScript or TypeScript
- Optionally use TypeScript to write your application code
A Platformatic Service is the basic building block of a Platformatic application.
Platformatic DB
Platformatic DB can expose a SQL database by dynamically mapping it to REST/OpenAPI and GraphQL endpoints. It supports a limited subset of the SQL query language, but also allows developers to add their own custom routes and resolvers.
Platformatic DB is composed of a few key libraries:
@platformatic/sql-mapper- follows the Data Mapper pattern to build an API on top of a SQL database. Internally it uses the@databaseproject.@platformatic/sql-openapi- usessql-mapperto create a series of REST routes and matching OpenAPI definitions. Internally it uses@fastify/swagger.@platformatic/sql-graphql- usessql-mapperto create a GraphQL endpoint and schema.sql-graphqlalso support Federation. Internally it usesmercurius.- SQL database migrations - uses
sql-mapperto perform schema migrations. Internally it usespostgratorlibrary.
Platformatic DB allows you to load a Fastify plugin during server startup that contains your own application-specific code. The plugin can add more routes or resolvers — these will automatically be shown in the OpenAPI and GraphQL schemas.
Platformatic Composer
Platformatic Composer is an HTTP server that automatically aggregates multiple services APIs into a single API.
The composer acts as a proxy for the underlying services, and automatically generates an OpenAPI definition that combines all the services' routes, acting as reverse proxy for the composed services.
Platformatic Runtime
Platformatic Runtime is an environment for running multiple Platformatic microservices as a single monolithic deployment unit.
In a Platformatic Runtime, each service is a separate process that communicates with Interservice communication using private message passing. The Runtime exposes an "entrypoint" API for the whole runtime. Only the entrypoint binds to an operating system port and can be reached from outside of the runtime.
Platformatic Stackables
Platformatic Stackables are reusable components that can be used to build Platformatic Services. Services can extends these modules and add custom functionalities.
This is useful to publish the application on the public npm registry (or a private one!), including building your own CLI, or to create a specialized template for your organization to allow for centralized bugfixes and updates.