Backend Blocks.
Decisions included.
Every block is a battle-tested microservice carrying thousands of decisions, best practices, and lessons from real projects and the industry. Use that code instead of starting from scratch — then run it yourself, on our platform, or on your own AWS account.
What is a Block?
Not a code sample. Not a starter kit. A battle-tested microservice that has already survived real projects, real traffic, and real mistakes — so you don't have to make them again.
Battle-Tested Software
Years in production across many projects — open source, RESTful, JSON:API, with SDKs. Hardened by real usage, not demos.
- Open source (Apache 2.0)
- REST APIs, SDKs & webhooks
- Proven under real traffic
Decisions Included
Thousands of design decisions already made, tested, and corrected: schemas, security, edge cases, multi-tenancy, integrations.
- Industry best practices baked in
- Edge cases already handled
- Lessons from many projects
Portable by Contract
Every block is configured entirely by environment variables — the same container runs anywhere, from our platform to your own AWS account.
- No hardcoded hosts or secrets
- Built-in health endpoints
- Move between homes, reversibly
The code is open source. What you choose is who runs it — you, us, or a partner.
Your UI. Your Brand. Our Backend Behind It.
Blocks are headless — pure APIs with no UI of their own. You design every pixel your users see. Your users never see 23blocks; they see your product.
Your Application
Your UI, your UX, your domain, your brand — React, Vue, Angular, iOS, Android, anything
The blocks — invisible to your users, running the backend
White-label by design
Every block sits behind your frontend. Your login page, your forms, your checkout — designed by you, powered by the blocks. No 23blocks branding anywhere your users look.
Any stack you already use
Standard REST + JSON:API, webhooks for events, and an open-source TypeScript Frontend SDK. If it can make an HTTP call, it can use a block.
Fits existing products too
You don't need a greenfield. Add a single block — a rewards program, a training system, AI features — behind the product you already have, under the brand you already own.
// your frontend, your way — blocks behind it
const client = createClient({ apiKey: 'pk_live_...' });
await client.auth.signIn(email, password);
await client.forms.submit(campaignForm);
Full integration guide in the developer docs →
Don't re-solve solved problems
Building a backend from scratch means re-running a decision process the industry has already finished — and rediscovering the same errors we already found, fixed, and shipped past.
Starting from scratch means deciding…
- ?How sessions expire, rotate, and get revoked — on every device
- ?How tenants stay isolated when one query goes wrong
- ?What happens to uploads when S3 hiccups mid-transfer
- ?How webhooks retry without double-charging a customer
- ?How to paginate, rate-limit, validate, and version every endpoint
- ?…and a thousand more, each one a chance to learn a lesson the hard way
With a block, those decisions are…
- Already made — by people who shipped this many times before
- Already tested — under real traffic, in real products
- Already corrected — every mistake on that list has been made, and fixed, in this code
- Still yours to inspect — the code is open source, nothing is a black box
Your differentiation isn't in rebuilding auth or file storage. Spend your decisions on the product only you can build.
«My AI can build an API in a weekend.» It can. Here is what the weekend doesn't include. The 3am edge cases, year two of maintenance, and running it in production — that's a job, not a feature.
Read the honest answerCore Blocks
Come for the block you need today. Leave with a backend that already works together — every block here shares one user model, one API convention, one shelf. Pick one to see its features.
Auth
Authentication, users, MFA, SSO
Onboarding
User journeys, activation flows
CRM
Contacts and relationships
Files
Cloud file storage and management
Forms
Dynamic form handling and validation
Content
Headless CMS for any content type
Products
Product catalog and inventory
Sales
Subscriptions and payments
Rewards
Loyalty, coupons, and badges
Geolocation
Maps, locations, and areas
Real Time
WebSockets and WebRTC
Search
Full-text search engine
AI / Jarvis
Machine learning features
University
Learning management system
Companies
Teams and organizations
Assets
Digital asset management
Wallet
Digital wallet and payments
Three Ways to Run It
Same blocks, same code, three homes. Start anywhere — the environment-variable contract means you can move later, reversibly.
Open Source
The code is open source (Apache 2.0). Fork it, read it, run it on anything that runs containers. Our deployment recipes are available if you want the production-grade setup without rediscovering it.
Self-hosting with 23blocks →Shared Platform
Use every block as a service on our multi-tenant platform. Free tier, pay-as-you-grow, live in minutes. The fastest way from idea to production.
See per-block pricing →Your Own Cloud
The whole platform deployed to your own AWS account — operated by us or by a certified partner. Your infrastructure, your data, our operations.
How In a Box works →Every block has a Claude Code plugin — live now
19 plugins, 205 skills in the public marketplace. Install one command and your AI agent knows how to drive any block on this shelf — endpoints, identity registration, the lot.
// add the marketplace once
claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/23blocks-OS/ai-agents
// then any block, e.g.
claude plugin install forms-block
Platform Features
Shared capabilities that power all your blocks
Exchange
Event-driven service bus connecting all your blocks together.
- Use 23blocks Exchange or bring your own
- AWS SQS, RabbitMQ, Kafka compatible
- Webhooks and event subscriptions
API Key Management
Securely manage third-party integrations from one dashboard.
- Stripe, OpenAI, Google, AWS, SendGrid
- Add any third-party API key
- Encrypted storage and rotation
Developer Tools
Everything you need to integrate quickly and effectively.
- Frontend SDK
- REST API with OpenAPI specs
- Webhooks for real-time events
The Code Is Free. Running It Well Isn't Easy.
You could run every block yourself — and relearn every IT, support, and infrastructure lesson on your own time. Or let people who have already learned them carry the operational load. This is what running it well actually takes:
Infrastructure
AWS-powered, multi-region deployment with load balancers, SSL certificates, and isolated databases.
Telemetry
Real-time monitoring 24/7 with performance dashboards, uptime SLAs, and proactive alerts.
Instrumentation
Distributed event logging, error tracking, alerting, and complete audit trails.
DevOps
Automated CI/CD pipelines, zero-downtime deployments, and seamless version management.
Skip the Lessons You Don't Need to Learn
Start on the free tier — no credit card required. Every block arrives with its decisions already made, tested, and running in production.
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