Rebase vs Directus
Directus is a powerful API engine, but its database-driven architecture makes deployments frustrating and extensibility hard. See why modern engineering teams are choosing Rebase's code-driven, React-native approach.
Code vs Database State
The Directus Pain
Directus stores your entire schema and UI configuration in hidden database tables (`directus_collections`, `directus_fields`). Managing environments (Staging to Production) requires clunky schema-sync CLI tools or manual database dumps that frequently break down or overwrite data.
How Rebase Solves This
Rebase uses a Schema-as-Code approach. Every collection and field is defined in a standard TypeScript file.
- Even when you use the visual Rebase Studio to add fields, the engine uses AST-manipulation to write the changes directly to your TypeScript schemas.
- Changes are committed to Git.
- Deployments are just a `git pull` away, guaranteeing perfectly synchronized environments every single time.
React Framework vs Vue Engine
The Directus Pain
Directus is an API engine built heavily on Vue.js. To build custom dashboards, specialized inputs, or unique data views, your team is forced to adopt Vue workflows, and stepping outside Directus's specific extension patterns is notoriously difficult.
How Rebase Solves This
Rebase is built natively on React.
- Create custom fields, entirely new pages, or bespoke dashboard widgets leveraging the massive React ecosystem.
- Use your favorite React components (MUI, Tailwind, Recharts) instantly without friction.
- The backend is a standard Hono app. Want a custom route? Just add `app.get()`.
Native RLS vs Application Layer
The Directus Pain
Directus enforces permissions exclusively via its own application layer. It does not utilize Postgres Row Level Security (RLS). If an external service queries your DB directly, all those Directus permissions vanish, leaving data exposed.
How Rebase Solves This
Rebase marries the power of native Postgres Row-Level Security with a visual management UI.
- Rules are pushed to the database via RLS (where possible), so your data stays locked down regardless of where the query originated.
- Visual editors make defining RLS policies intuitive and error-free.
- You remain in total control of the security context.
Own your code, own your data.
Migrate your project to a true TypeScript environment built for developers.
Rebase and Directus, answered
Can Rebase run on a database Directus already manages?
Yes. Rebase points at an existing PostgreSQL database and reads the tables it finds, so a Directus-managed schema is a valid starting point. Directus's own bookkeeping tables stay where they are and are simply not modelled as collections — you describe the tables you care about and leave the rest alone.
Who owns the schema?
You do, and this is the central difference. In Directus content types are created through its interface, in its migration format, in tables it manages. In Rebase the schema is TypeScript in your repository; Rebase generates the Postgres tables from it and never asks for a shape of its own. Point it at a database that predates it and it works.
Where is access control enforced?
In Postgres. Rebase compiles a collection's security rules into real row-level security policies, so a query that reaches the database any other way — psql, a report, another service — is still governed by them. Directus enforces permissions in its application layer, in front of the database, which is a real and well-built engine but one that stops at the edge of Directus.
When is Directus the better choice?
When you need a mature content-management experience today. Directus has years of work in its editorial interface, a larger marketplace, and a broader set of database engines behind it — Rebase is PostgreSQL only, deliberately, because the row-level-security story depends on it. If your team is primarily editors managing content, Directus is the more finished product for that job.
Does Rebase give me an API as well as an admin panel?
Both, from the same definition. A REST API, a typed client SDK, realtime subscriptions and an MCP server for agents are generated from the collections, and the admin panel is a consumer of that same public API under the same policies. There is no privileged back channel and no second copy of the data.
Do I have to self-host Rebase?
No. Self-host it and you own the data, the code and the machine it runs on — that is the default and it is fully supported. Or deploy the same project to Rebase Cloud, which is live with real tenants today and opening in batches while it is in private beta, priced per resource rather than per seat. Your code is identical either way; hosting is a deployment target, not a fork.
Don't take our word for it.
The comparison that matters is the one you run. Point Rebase at a Postgres database you already have and see how it holds up next to Directus.
