Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

ZenStack VS Refine

Compare ZenStack VS Refine and see what are their differences

ZenStack logo ZenStack

Build scalable web apps with minimal code

Refine logo Refine

A React Framework for building internal tools, admin panels, dashboards & B2B apps with unmatched flexibilty.
  • ZenStack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-10
  • Refine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-11-18

Refine is a meta React framework that enables the rapid development of a wide range of web applications. From internal tools, admin panels, B2B apps and dashboards, it serves as a comprehensive solution for building any type of CRUD applications.

It's internal hooks and components simplifies the development process and eliminates the repetitive tasks by providing industry-standard solutions for crucial aspects of a project, including authentication, access control, routing, networking, state management, and i18n.

Refine is headless by design and offers unlimited styling and customization possibilities, empowering developers to create tailored and fully functional applications that meet specific project requirements.

ZenStack

$ Details
Platforms
-
Release Date
-
Categories -

Refine

Website
refine.dev
$ Details
Platforms
Web Browser React Native Remix Electron NextJS ReactJS
Release Date
2021 September

ZenStack features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Refine features and specs

  • Backend Agnostic: Yes
  • Decoupled UI: Yes
  • Native Typescript Core: Yes
  • Powerful Default UI: Yes
  • Routing: Yes
  • Authentication: Yes
  • Rest API Integration: Yes
  • GraphQL API Integration: Yes
  • Developer tools: Yes
  • SSR Support: Yes

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ZenStack and Refine)
Developer Tools
5 5%
95% 95
Web Service Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Open Source
0 0%
100% 100
API Tools
100 100%
0% 0

Questions and Answers

As answered by people managing ZenStack and Refine.

What makes your product unique?

Refine's answer:

Refine's unparalleled flexibility with data providers makes it a unique choice. Whether you're integrating with REST, GraphQL, or any other data source, Refine streamlines the process.

Another defining feature is its built-in UI integrations. This means you can create polished and responsive user interfaces with ease. Plus, with a thriving community and extensive developer support, you're never alone when using Refine.

Refine simplifies data management and CRUD operations, allowing you to focus on building your application's core functionality. Its robust security features and authentication support ensure your data is protected.

What truly sets Refine apart is its headless architecture. This design philosophy empowers you to customize every aspect of your application, giving you complete control over its look and feel.

Real-time capabilities are another standout feature. This means you can easily incorporate live updates and collaboration features into your apps.

With comprehensive documentation and tutorials, getting started and mastering Refine is a straightforward process. The active open-source community ensures regular updates and improvements.

Refine is suitable for projects of enterprise-level solutions. Its scalability makes it a versatile choice for developers and organizations alike.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Refine's answer:

It provides a headless architecture, giving developers complete freedom to customize the frontend using any UI library or framework, which is not always the case with other solutions.

Secondly, Refine's data provider support is extensive, with a wide range of options, making it easier to integrate with various backends. Additionally, it has a rapidly growing community and extensive documentation, ensuring excellent support and resources for users. The real-time features, along with built-in UI integration for popular libraries, simplify complex tasks.

Refine is backed by an active development team that regularly releases updates and improvements. In summary, Refine offers flexibility, comprehensive support, and a strong community, making it a compelling choice in the competitive landscape of web application development frameworks.

How would you describe your primary audience?

Refine's answer:

Refine's primary audience consists of developers and teams who are focused on building Enterprise web applications, particularly those in need of admin panels, internal tools, or dashboards. Refine can be use for any type of CRUD apps.

These developers typically have a background in Typescript and React and are looking for a framework that provides flexibility, extensibility, and efficiency in building data-centric applications.

Refine is popular among enterprises and businesses that require scalable and maintainable solutions for their data management needs.

User comments

Share your experience with using ZenStack and Refine. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Refine should be more popular than ZenStack. It has been mentiond 37 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ZenStack mentions (6)

  • PHP: Laravel, Ruby: Rails, JavaScript:?
    The ZenStack toolkit I’m building on top of Prisma aims to narrow down the gap further. It adds an Authorization layer on top of the schema and then automatically generates both APIs and frontend hooks for you. So, put simply, once you're done with your schema, you're almost done with your backend. You can then choose whatever frontend framework, like React, Vue, or Svelte, to get your UI done. - Source: dev.to / 7 days ago
  • The Many Ways Not to Build an API
    Another strategy is to model access control declaratively and enforce it in the application layer. ZenStack (built above Prisma ORM) and Hasura are good examples of this approach. The following code shows how access policies are defined with ZenStack and how a secured CRUD API can be derived automatically. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Building an Admin Console With Minimum Code Using React-Admin, Prisma, and Zenstack
    ZenStack is a toolkit built above Prisma that adds access control, automatic CRUD web API, etc. It unleashes the ORM's full power for full-stack development. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How Much Work Does It Take to Build a Programming Language?
    We need to have some concrete language to build to help make sense of things. I always felt real-world examples are much more effective than toys, so I'll use the ZModel language that we're building at ZenStack as an example. It's a DSL used to model database tables and access control rules. To keep the post short, I'm going only to use a small set of features to demonstrate. Our goal will be to compile the... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Modeling Authorization in Prisma - No Theory, Just Code
    It's assumed that you know the basics of using Prisma. Prisma is an excellent ORM. But it doesn't have a built-in authorization solution. To supplement that, we'll use ZenStack throughout the samples. ZenStack is a toolkit that supercharges Prisma in many ways. One of the features is to provide a declarative way to model authorization. Its modeling language, ZModel, is a superset of Prisma Schema Language, so it... - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
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Refine mentions (37)

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What are some alternatives?

When comparing ZenStack and Refine, you can also consider the following products

Supabase - An open source Firebase alternative

PocketBlocks - In PocketBlocks, all you need to do is drag and drop pre-built or self-customized components onto the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) canvas to make an app, PocketBlocks helps you build an app quickly and focus on the business logic.

TrueVault - TrueVault is a HIPAA compliant database as a service. Healthcare applications use TrueVault to store protected health information (PHI). TrueVault provides all client­-side and server-side functionalities required by HIPAA.

ToolJet - Open-source alternative for Retool

OneSignal - Customer engagement platform used by over 1 million developers and marketers; the fastest and most reliable way to send mobile and web push notifications, in-app messages, emails, and SMS.

Blitz.js - Rails-like framework for React apps, built on Next.js