Samaritan

[thewoodfish]

Project Abstract

Samaritan is a decentralized backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that offers Firebase-like APIs for building real-time Web3 applications.

Grant level

• Level 1: Up to $10,000, 2 approvals
• Level 2: Up to $30,000, 3 approvals
• Level 3: Unlimited, 5 approvals (for >$100k: Web3 Foundation Council approval)

Application Checklist

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• The initial PR contains only one commit (squash and force-push if needed).
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[github-actions]

CLA Assistant Lite bot All contributors have signed the CLA ✍️ ✅

[thewoodfish]

I have read and hereby sign the Contributor License Agreement.

[keeganquigley]

Hey @thewoodfish thanks for the application. One question I have right off the bat is, what is the current demand for Firebase usage right now from dApp devs? For example I know that Axie Infinity has been using it for data and game state, so I'm just curious if there are many other popular projects that are using Firebase as a backend?

In other words, are you seeing a trend here in which dApps are increasingly adopting a hybrid architectural model?

[thewoodfish]

Thanks for the honest question @keeganquigley .
Yes, we’re seeing more dApps adopt hybrid architectures — combining decentralized logic with centralized tools like Firebase or Supabase for speed and ease of development.

Axie Infinity has used Firebase for game state and real-time updates.
Lenster (a Lens Protocol client) and other Lens-based apps have used Supabase for session management, search, and off-chain actions.
Some DAO tools and dashboards (like early Snapshot forks) use Firebase for live data and admin views.
Orbis and some Farcaster clients use centralized services to manage indexing, notifications, and real-time collaboration features.

Developers choose these tools not because they align with Web3 values, but because they’re fast, well-documented, and easy to plug in.

Samaritan brings that same developer experience — real-time database, wallet-based auth, and decentralized storage — in a self-hosted (by choice), modular way that aligns with Web3 principles. Over time, we’ll expand it with plug-and-play modules like presence, queues, and CRDT utilities to cover even more backend needs for dApp developers.

[keeganquigley]

Thanks @thewoodfish sounds good to me, I'm personally willing to support it given the team's track record. I will mark the application as ready for review and ping the rest of the committee for comment.

[muddlebee]

Supabase is an open-source alternative to Firebase that provides a complete backend-as-a-service, combining a scalable, feature-rich PostgreSQL database with user authentication, file storage with access controls (ACLs), and real-time APIs.

SamaritanDB is an interesting concept built on IPFS, but I'm doubtful how well it will scale and how practical it is for real-world production use compared to Supabase.

Note: I have used Supabase in many of my apps :)

[thewoodfish]

Thanks for the feedback — really appreciate you sharing your experience with Supabase (it’s a great tool).

We’re not trying to replace Supabase or PostgreSQL in traditional app stacks — instead, Samaritan focuses specifically on real-time, collaborative apps in decentralized contexts, where wallet-based identity, offline-first sync, and self-hosting are essential.

Unlike a relational DB, SamaritanDB is a document-based sync layer, built for cases where:

• You want to sync shared state across devices/users in real time.

• You don’t want to rely on central servers (e.g., chat, multiplayer, DAO tools).

• You want to grant access with a wallet signature — not username/password.

We agree IPFS has limitations at scale, which is why our architecture is pluggable. Storage backends can be IPFS, local disk, or S3-compatible systems — depending on the use case. What we care most about is that the interface is decentralized, composable, and portable, not locked into a single backend.

Think of it less as a replacement for Postgres, and more like a Firebase Firestore for Web3 — where developers can build collaborative, data-driven dApps using the same tools they love, but on their own terms.

We’re building for a different layer of the stack — but we definitely share the goal of giving developers superpowers.