Para - an open-source, general-purpose, backend framework for the cloud.
Para is an open source, general-purpose, backend framework for the cloud.
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Para is an open-source, general-purpose backend framework for the cloud that simplifies development by handling object persistence, retrieval, indexing, caching, and providing a secure JSON API.
🚀 Overview
Para is a scalable, multitenant backend server/framework designed to accelerate the development of web, mobile, IoT, game, and prototype applications. It abstracts away backend complexities by automatically storing objects in databases, indexing them for search, and caching for performance, all accessible via a clean RESTful JSON API.
What problem does this project solve? It eliminates the need to manually manage persistence across various data stores, set up search engines, caching layers, authentication, and scaling for cloud apps. Who is it built for? Developers, teams, and indie makers building scalable, multi-tenant applications. Why did you build it? Created in 2013 as an open-source solution to provide a simpler, more modular alternative to complex backend frameworks, allowing focus on app logic. "Because it's open source, well documented and tested and it's just easier to use than most frameworks out there."
✨ Key Features
- Multi-tenancy: Each app gets isolated tables, indexes, and caches for secure, scalable SaaS.
- RESTful JSON API: Secure with AWS Signature 4, JWT auth, LDAP/SAML/social login, and fine-grained permissions.
- Database-agnostic persistence: Supports NoSQL (Cassandra, MongoDB), SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL, H2), via plugins.
- Full-text search: Powered by Elasticsearch or Lucene for fast querying.
- Distributed caching: Hazelcast or Caffeine for high performance.
- Webhooks & monitoring: Event-driven integrations and Dropwizard metrics.
- Optional: Para Web Console for admin UI, upcoming plugins.
🛠 Tech Stack
- Backend: Java, Google Guice (DI), Dropwizard (metrics), Hibernate Validator.
- Database: Plugins for PostgreSQL, MySQL, H2, MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB.
- Search: Elasticsearch, Lucene.
- Cache: Hazelcast, Caffeine.
- Auth: JWT, LDAP, SAML, OAuth.
- Hosting: Docker (
erudikaltd/para), self-hosted or managed at paraio.com (AWS-based).
👥 Who Is This For?
This project is useful for:
- Developers who want to prototype and scale backends quickly without boilerplate.
- Teams looking for modular, cloud-native persistence and API layers.
- Indie makers building web/mobile/IoT apps needing multi-tenancy and search.
📸 Screenshots / Demo
- Live demo: https://scoold.com (Stack Overflow clone built with Para in ~7000 lines).
- GitHub: https://github.com/Erudika/para
- Web Console: https://console.paraio.org
🔥 Project Status
- 🟢 Actively building
Last updated: 2026-03-24
❓ FAQ
Is this project free?
Open Source (Apache 2.0, completely free). Hosted service at paraio.com is Freemium (free developer account, paid for premium support/scaling).
Is the source code available?
Yes — https://github.com/Erudika/para (core), plus plugins like para-dao-sql, para-search-elasticsearch.
Can I contribute?
Yes — open issues on GitHub, submit PRs for features/bug fixes, provide feedback via discussions or test with Docker.
📬 Contact & Links
- Website: https://paraio.org
- GitHub: https://github.com/Erudika/para
- Twitter/X: N/A
- Email: Contact via GitHub issues or paraio.com support
- Hosting: https://paraio.com
Built with ❤️ and kept warm on WarmIndex.
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