Merge pull request #2598 from appwrite/eldad-letter

Eldad letter

Author: ebenezerdon

src/routes/blog/post/the-developers-cloud/+page.markdoc

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Introducing the developers' cloud"
+description: This is an open letter to the Appwrite community about the future ahead. Appwrite is no longer just a backend platform; we are building towards the most complete cloud development platform to date. 
+date: 2025-11-14
+cover: /images/blog/the-developers-cloud/dev-cloud-cover.png
+timeToRead: 7
+author: eldad-fux
+category: announcement
+---
+
+Technology continues to reshape the world, and developers remain at the center of that transformation. Their creativity and problem-solving are what turn ideas into products that matter. From the beginning, Appwrite was built to serve that creativity. Our mission has always been clear: to make software development accessible, developer-centric, and flexible by building with and for the open-source community.
+
+Over the past few years, Appwrite has become known as a reliable backend platform. We focused on empowering developers during the build stage. Auth, Databases, Functions, Messaging, and Storage formed the backbone of that experience. Together, they helped teams move from idea to working product faster, with less complexity and fewer decisions to manage.
+
+But every product journey continues beyond that first working build. Teams eventually ask the same questions:
+
+Where do we deploy? How do we go live? How do we scale? How do we secure and observe our systems in production?
+
+This is where overhead creeps in. It's where developers find themselves stitching together services, managing integration complexity, and maintaining mental models across multiple platforms that don't naturally speak to each other.
+
+And today, Appwrite has evolved to solve more of that journey. We're no longer just a backend.
+
+# Evolving the platform
+
+Appwrite is becoming a more complete experience for developers, extending our capabilities across the full lifecycle of product development. This is not a change in mission. It's the natural next step in fulfilling it - giving developers everything they need to create and innovate without limits, all in one place.
+
+With the launch of Appwrite Sites, you can now deploy and host your applications directly through Appwrite. It's the first major milestone in supporting the journey beyond build. You can take your project live, scale it, and operate it with the same thoughtful developer experience and flexibility that have always guided Appwrite.
+
+We think about this journey as a continuous chain:
+
+**Imagine** - explore what you want to build
+
+**Build** - create it using Auth, Databases, Functions, Messaging, Storage
+
+**Deploy** - take it live, deliver it to users, and scale
+
+**Observe** - monitor and understand how it behaves in the real world
+
+**Protect** - operate with confidence, keep your data and users safe
+
+![The cloud journey](/images/blog/the-developers-cloud/graph1.png)
+
+Our goal is to bring these stages together into one seamless flow. The result is a platform that reduces cognitive overhead, minimizes integration work, and lets developers focus on shipping.
+
+This expanding experience is what we call the developers' cloud.
+
+A BaaS stops at the API layer, leaving developers to assemble everything else. Hyperscalers sit much lower, offering enormous power but expecting teams to build every piece themselves. The space in between - the space where most real products live - has been fragmented for too long.
+
+The developers' cloud fills that gap. It brings together the capabilities developers need, at the right level of abstraction, with a coherent experience that carries them from idea to production and beyond. Not too high-level to lose control, not too low-level to slow you down - but intentionally designed for the realities of modern software.
+
+> Each of these stages feeds the other and creates a value loop. As you've learned to expect, there is always more coming, but for now, we'll let the work speak in its own time.
+
+As we look ahead, we're quietly working on expanding the edges of that lifecycle, especially around how developers begin new ideas and how they understand and operate their products as they grow.
+
+# Why this matters
+
+Modern product development is cyclical. Teams build, deploy, observe, refine, and repeat. Each stage informs the next. The best platforms support that entire loop consistently and transparently.
+
+By evolving Appwrite into a complete end-to-end platform, we're creating an environment where developers can build, deploy, and grow without switching tools or losing context. It shortens feedback loops, encourages iteration, and keeps the entire product lifecycle close to the developer.
+
+This evolution still follows the same principles that shaped Appwrite from the beginning: flexibility, openness, and developer-centric design - now extended across the entire lifecycle.
+
+As this vision expands, we're also thinking about how to make the earliest steps of building to be more accessible. There's a lot of opportunity to help more people transform ideas into working products faster, while still keeping developers at the center of the platform. Some of that work is already underway.
+
+# Integrating AI thoughtfully
+
+It's impossible to talk about the future of software without acknowledging AI. At the same time, we're aware there is real fatigue in the industry. Terms are overused. Promises are exaggerated. And too often, AI becomes a layer of hype rather than a layer of value.
+
+Our view is simple: AI is a tool that should make developers more productive, not replace the craft behind their work. We use AI internally to move faster, automate the repetitive parts, and help teams explore solutions more efficiently - always with humans in the loop. We apply it where it improves quality and reduces friction, not where it adds noise. That will continue to guide how we bring AI into the platform.
+
+From a product perspective, our focus is on flexibility and integration rather than hype. As part of our ongoing evolution of Appwrite's database capabilities, we're expanding the tools available to developers building AI-powered applications. This includes adding a built-in vector store to Appwrite, improving how AI models integrate with Appwrite Functions, and smoothing the path toward complete, reliable RAG workflows across different LLM providers.
+
+We're also working to make it even easier to build persistent, agent-driven applications using Appwrite Functions together with Appwrite Realtime. This pattern already powers long-running, event-aware systems built on Appwrite today. Our focus now is on making the experience more accessible, improving the knowledge and tooling around it, and refining the workflows so developers can build real-time, LLM-enabled applications with less friction.
+
+All of this work follows the principles that define Appwrite: predictable performance, strong defaults, and a developer experience that remains coherent as the platform grows. AI should enhance the way you build and operate your applications, not introduce new friction. That's the bar we're building for.
+
+# How we build
+
+As our scope grows, so does our responsibility to build with depth and intention. To support this evolution, we operate through cross-functional product teams. Each team owns a vertical end-to-end, combining engineering, product, design, and operations to focus deeply on quality and developer experience.
+
+Cross-functional ownership gives teams autonomy and speed, but it also introduces new challenges. When multiple teams move in parallel, it becomes harder to maintain shared standards, align on design principles, and ensure a consistent developer experience across products. Without structure, surfaces can drift and lose coherence.
+
+To address these challenges, we balance vertical product teams with functional chapters. Chapters bring together experts across teams in engineering, product, and design to maintain strong communication, shared standards, and a unified perspective. They ensure that using one Appwrite product feels familiar when you move to another. APIs align. Workflows behave consistently. The platform feels cohesive and intentional.
+
+This structure lets us move with urgency while protecting the details that matter most: reliable scaling, predictable performance, thoughtful APIs, transparent pricing, secure defaults, and workflows that feel natural.
+
+Every stage of the developer journey requires specialization. We take that seriously.
+
+# What comes next
+
+Appwrite will continue delivering the backend building blocks and deployment tools you rely on. At the same time, Sites and the upcoming stages of Imagine, Observe, and Protect will expand how developers interact with their projects in production, giving you more visibility, control, and confidence as you scale.
+
+You'll also see us continue to explore new layers of flexibility, especially in how developers connect and manage their data. We're working on something that will push our vision even further, but we'll share more when it's ready.
+
+This isn't a single release. It's a long-term evolution guided by the same mission that has always defined Appwrite: empowering developers to create, innovate, and succeed at scale with a platform that grows as they do.
+
+![The cloud journey](/images/blog/the-developers-cloud/graph2.png)
+
+As these pieces come together, Appwrite becomes not just where you build, but where your product lives and scales. One platform. Consistent experience. Full lifecycle.
+
+This is the future we are building toward.
+
+And this is just the beginning.