The admin panel nightmare

Every growing startup hits the same roadblock: how do you give non‑technical team members a safe, fast, and intuitive way to view and edit production data?
Commercial solutions like Retool or Forest Admin promise a click‑and‑drag UI, but they come with steep licensing costs, opaque data pipelines, and a reliance on third‑party SaaS platforms. When you need full control over security, compliance, or simply want to avoid recurring bills, you end up building a custom dashboard from scratch—an effort that can take weeks of engineering time.

Enter Kottster, the open‑source, self‑hosted admin panel that turns any PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, MSSQL, or SQLite database into a polished back‑office in seconds. With a visual page builder, TypeScript‑ready custom pages, and a Docker‑friendly deployment model, Kottster bridges the gap between “quick‑and‑dirty” internal tools and heavyweight enterprise SaaS.

Why Choose Kottster?

• Zero licensing cost – Kottster is released under the Apache 2.0 license, so you can use, modify, and redistribute it without paying a cent.
• Self‑hosted, full data sovereignty – Your data never leaves your infrastructure. Deploy on‑prem, on a private cloud, or any VPS you control.
• Instant setup with a visual editor – Create table pages, dashboards, and custom React pages in a few clicks; no boilerplate code required.
• Full code‑level customization – If the visual editor isn’t enough, dive into the generated TypeScript/React source to add business logic, custom components, or third‑party integrations.
• Built on a modern stack – Node.js, Vite, React, Mantine, and TypeScript give developers a familiar, hot‑reload‑enabled environment that’s easy to extend.
• Community‑driven & extensible – Contributions are welcome via GitHub, and the project ships with a Discord community for real‑time support.

Spotlight on Key Features

Getting Started

The fastest way to try Kottster is with the official CLI. Make sure you have Node 20+ installed.

# Scaffold a new admin panel
npx @kottster/cli@latest new my-admin

Navigate into the project and start the development server:

cd my-admin
npm install          # install dependencies
npm run dev          # start Vite dev server (http://localhost:5480)

You’ll be prompted to create an admin account, then you can connect your database by editing the .env file:

DB_TYPE=postgres
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_USER=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=yourpassword
DB_NAME=mydb

After the server restarts, Kottster automatically discovers your tables and presents a Table Page for each. From there you can:

1. Add a dashboard – click “New Dashboard”, select a table, and drop a chart component.
2. Build a custom page – choose a template (e.g., “Settings Form”) or start from a blank React file.
3. Deploy – push the code to any Docker host, Kubernetes cluster, or traditional VM. The Docker quick‑start is documented in the repo’s Dockerfile.

For production, the recommended approach is to build a Docker image

Comparison with Proprietary Alternatives

Bottom line: If you value cost transparency, data privacy, and the freedom to extend every line of code, Kottster is the only choice that gives you a production‑ready admin panel without a subscription.

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Call to Action

Ready to replace costly SaaS admin tools with a fully controllable, open‑source alternative?

• Try the live demo: https://kottster.app/
• Read the docs: Getting Started
• Star the repo: https://github.com/kottster/kottster
• Join the community on Discord for real‑time help and feature discussions.

Deploy Kottster today, keep your data where it belongs, and give your team the power to manage it—without paying a single cent. Happy building!