We Built An Open-Source Backend Server for Web & Mobile Developers: AppWrite v0.5 [Announcement]

Built-in, automated SSL, custom domains, new authentication features, dark mode, and more! After a lot of work and anticipation from our developers’ community, I am really excited to announce the release of version 0.5 of the Appwrite back-end server.

The new version is full of new features, improvements to the [Appwrite API](//appwrite.io/docs). Appwrite 0.5 is the most stable Appwrite version to date.

As with every Appwrite release, this release wouldn’t be available without the amazing support of the Appwrite open-source community. Thanks to our community feedback, bug reports, and feature suggestions, we can make sure we are making the most of the Appwrite server with every new release.

This is also a great opportunity to thank our community contributors 🇮🇳 Christy Jacob, 🇩🇪Torsten Dittmann, 🇷🇴Armino Popp, and 🇪🇸Pedro Cisneros Santana for sending us great pull-requests and making this release possible.

What’s New?

With this new release, we have added a lot of new features and also improved the Appwrite API spec to make it a lot more consistent, predictable, and decrease the learning curve for getting started with Appwrite.

Below is a list of some of our most notable new features. I would also recommend checking our new homepage and docs site to learn more about our new and improved API spec.

Custom OAuth Scopes

Custom OAuth scopes allow Appwrite developers to request extra permissions when logging users with an OAuth provider by asking for access tokens with permission to any available OAuth scopes that are offered by the given OAuth provider.

This will allow developers a lot more flexibility when required for advanced and more complex integration with third-party providers.

New OAuth Adapters

As with the previous Appwrite version, the new Appwrite version also introduces new OAuth adapters of your choice.

In version 0.5, you will find eight new adapters for Discord, Twitch, Spotify, Yahoo, Salesforce, Yandex, PayPal, and Bitly.

Custom Domains

The new custom domain feature will allow you to attach your domain to the Appwrite server.

This feature is great for adding extra privacy and security for web integrations by allowing you to use first-party secure session cookies rather than third-party ones. This is also very useful because modern browsers will start to block third-party cookies in future releases completely.

Auto-Generated SSL Certificates

With the new custom domain feature, we are also very excited to introduce the auto-SSL certificate generator.

The certificate generator will automatically create a new and free SSL certificate for your custom domains using the Let’s Encrypt CertBot. Appwrite will also take care of your SSL certificate renewal to make sure you don’t have to worry about anything other than writing your app’s code.

Dark Mode and Responsive UI

Version 0.5 introduces full dark mode and responsive UI support for the Appwrite homepage, the docs website, and the Appwrite console dashboard.

You can easily choose to switch between dark and light mode using the theme switch button. This is also a good opportunity to thank our community member, Kolkies, for suggesting this feature in our GitHub repository in the first place.

Get Started

If you haven’t already started using the Appwrite back-end server, you can do so quickly by installing your local instance with Docker (takes about two minutes).

Once you’ve installed your local copy of the Appwrite back-end server, the best way to get started is with our getting started tutorial (~two minutes read) and by reading our API documentation.

Version 0.5 also introduces a new step-by-step command-line installation to help you customize your Appwrite setup easily.

Check Out the Appwrite Playground

With the new Appwrite 0.5 release, we have also released an updated version of the Appwrite Playground. Appwrite Playground is a great way to get a quick look and feel of how you can leverage Appwrite to build your next new project.

Appwrite playground is a simple demo of Appwrite web integration where you can find very basic and simple code examples to help you understand how easily and quickly you can integrate Appwrite.

What’s Next?

You can learn more about the full changes in version 0.5 by checking out the Appwrite change-log.

Although we have only just released version 0.5, work on version 0.6 has already begun, and you are all welcome to follow our progress live on GitHub and share your feedback, suggestions, and pull requests.