Encore Has a Free API: Build Production-Ready Backend Services With Zero Boilerplate

Encore is a backend development platform that uses static analysis to understand your code and automatically provisions infrastructure — databases, queues, cron jobs, and APIs — from type definitions alone.

Why Encore Matters

Backend development is 20% business logic and 80% infrastructure glue: setting up databases, writing API boilerplate, configuring queues, managing secrets. Encore eliminates the glue.

What you get for free:

• Declare APIs, databases, and queues as code — Encore provisions them
• Automatic API documentation (OpenAPI)
• Built-in distributed tracing and structured logging
• Local development dashboard with service catalog
• Deploy to your own AWS/GCP with encore deploy
• TypeScript (encore.ts) and Go (encore.go) SDKs

Quick Start

# Install
curl -fsSL https://encore.dev/install.sh | bash

# Create project
encore app create my-app --template=ts
cd my-app

# Run locally (with dashboard)
encore run

# Deploy
encore deploy

Define an API (TypeScript)

import { api } from "encore.dev/api";

interface CreateUserParams {
  name: string;
  email: string;
}

interface User {
  id: number;
  name: string;
  email: string;
  createdAt: string;
}

// This IS your API endpoint — no router, no middleware, no boilerplate
export const createUser = api(
  { method: "POST", path: "/users", expose: true },
  async (params: CreateUserParams): Promise<User> => {
    const user = await db.insert(params);
    return user;
  }
);

export const getUser = api(
  { method: "GET", path: "/users/:id", expose: true },
  async ({ id }: { id: number }): Promise<User> => {
    return await db.findById(id);
  }
);

Databases (Zero Config)

import { SQLDatabase } from "encore.dev/storage/sqldb";

// Declare database — Encore creates it automatically
const db = new SQLDatabase("users", {
  migrations: "./migrations",
});

// Use it
const user = await db.queryRow<User>(
  "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = $1",
  id
);

Pub/Sub (Built-in)

import { Topic, Subscription } from "encore.dev/pubsub";

// Declare topic
const signups = new Topic<{ userId: number; email: string }>("signups", {
  deliveryGuarantee: "at-least-once",
});

// Publish
await signups.publish({ userId: 123, email: "[e-mail]" });

// Subscribe
const _ = new Subscription(signups, "send-welcome", {
  handler: async (event) => {
    await sendWelcomeEmail(event.email);
  },
});

Cron Jobs

import { CronJob } from "encore.dev/cron";

// Runs every hour — Encore handles scheduling
const cleanup = new CronJob("cleanup", {
  title: "Clean expired sessions",
  schedule: "0 * * * *",
  endpoint: cleanExpiredSessions,
});

export const cleanExpiredSessions = api(
  { method: "POST", path: "/internal/cleanup" },
  async () => {
    const deleted = await db.exec(
      "DELETE FROM sessions WHERE expires_at < NOW()"
    );
    return { deleted: deleted.rowCount };
  }
);

Boilerplate Comparison

Feature	Express.js	Encore
API endpoint	15 lines	5 lines
Database setup	Manual config	Declare + auto
Pub/Sub	External service	Built-in
Cron jobs	node-cron + config	3 lines
API docs	swagger-jsdoc	Automatic
Tracing	OpenTelemetry setup	Built-in

Useful Links

• Encore.dev
• GitHub
• Documentation
• Examples

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