We are happy to announce the release of the Appwrite backend server version 0.4. The new Appwrite version includes some new features and bug fixes that take Appwrite a few more steps closer to our first stable version (1.0). As with every Appwrite version, this version couldn’t be possible without the great help of the Appwrite’s developers community.

If this is the first time you hear about Appwrite, you should know that Appwrite is a complete open-source backend server for web and mobile developers. Appwrite provides developers with all the common APIs they need to get started with building a web or native application. Currently, Appwrite is only available as a self-hosted service you can easily install with Docker. You can learn more at appwrite.io or in our GitHub repository.

This is the fourth version of Appwrite backend server, and we are very happy that we still manage to meet our goal of releasing one version a month. This new version includes ten new features, eight bug fixes, and three security patches. Below is the complete change-log for this version.

Version 0.4 Change Log

Features

• Added five new locales for locale service and email templates (is, ml, th, fo, ph, pn).
• 2 stage Docker build. Core Docker image size reduced to 127MB.
• Limit HTTP origin check only to browser integrations.
• Updated new Brexit date to 31–01–2020 in EU countries service.
• Added a version number to sign in and signup pages for easier debugging of issues.
• We are now using native Docker volumes for a better cross-platform support and easier management of read/write permissions.
• Added support for custom SSL certificates without needing to set a proxy server.
• Added project UID validation check when making an API call. This should help developers understand our authentication errors better.
• ClamAV docker image has been updated to version 1.0.7.
• MariaDB docker image has been updated to version 1.0.1.

Security

• PHP-FPM security patch fix — Upgraded PHP version to 7.3.12 [Major].
• Remove executable permission from avatars files [Minor].
• SDK Generator updated Twig dependency due to a security issue: https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/44102 [Minor].

Bug Fixes

• Added a new loading message when creating a new project.
• Fixed broken redirect URL when creating a new project.
• Fix for error when a user password is too short when attempting to create a user from the Appwrite console.
• Fix for issue denying the creation of session cookies on localhosts with a port other than 80 or 443.
• Fix for bug that prevented actual file size calculation.
• Fix for MariaDB SQL abuse table time column field-type.
• Fix for error message not showing up in console failed signup.
• Fix for cookie session not being appropriately set when accessing the console from IP hostname.

Breaking Changes

• OAuth path is now /auth/login/oauth instead of /auth/oauth and /auth/oauth/callback is now /auth/login/oauth/callback, this is for better consistency with new login methods we will introduce in the future.
• Changed file attribute name from ‘sizeCompressed’ to ‘sizeActual’ to better reflect the server logic.

Get Started

If you haven’t already started using the Appwrite backend server, you can do it quickly by installing your local instance using Docker. Once you have installed your local copy of the Appwrite backend server, the best way to start using it is by reading our getting started tutorial and by reading our API documentation.

Credits

Again, a huge thank you to all our community members who dedicated their time and sent amazing pull requests, reported bugs, and suggested new features.

A special thank you to the members who dedicated their time and gave us a lot of great feedback and insights about their experience with version 0.3. Another big thank you to our community member Mostafa Hussein who spent days on improving our Docker image build stage.

We already have a staggering number of 99 contributors from all around the world. This new version release is a product of the great feedback and help we received from our community members on both Github and Discord.

What’s Next?

Join us on our Github repository and on our Discord server to share your thought, ideas and ask for support with your early steps using Appwrite. We will soon release our goals for version 0.5, and we would love you to be part of building Appwrite’s roadmap.