RESTHeart

The Open Source Backend for MongoDB.

Open Source · Modern Java · MongoDB-native

Instant REST, GraphQL and WebSocket APIs. No backend code.

Authentication, sign-up, teams and Stripe subscriptions, built in.

AI-native: an MCP server on your data, and vector search.

Extend it in Java, Kotlin, JavaScript or TypeScript.

🚀 Try RESTHeart Cloud ⬇️ Run it Free Join our community on Discord

Fully managed, no installation required • Or run it yourself — free and open source

Run RESTHeart with MongoDB:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/\
SoftInstigate/restheart/master/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up

Your MongoDB, instantly an API:

# create a collection (needs authentication)
curl -X PUT localhost:8080/inventory \
  -u admin:secret

# write a document
curl -X POST localhost:8080/inventory \
  -u admin:secret \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"item":"card", "qty":15}'

# read documents with a filter
curl -g 'localhost:8080/inventory?filter={"qty":{"$gt":10}}' \
  -u admin:secret

More ways to run it →

Get Started

MongoDB REST API Tutorial MongoDB GraphQL API Tutorial Framework Tutorial Auth Tutorial

Setup instructions included in each tutorial

Your Data, Ready for AI Agents

What your app already has, an agent can discover and call, with the permissions your app already enforces. No wrapper, no hand-written tools.

🤖 MCP server

Publish a collection, an aggregation or a stream with one line of metadata. Claude, Cursor or VS Code find it and call it, reading only what their user may read.

MCP server → · Tutorial

🔎 Vector search and RAG

Chunk, embed with your provider, search by meaning with $vectorSearch — or $vectorScan, with no Atlas Search at all.

Vector search → · Tutorial

Building with it? Sophia, the documentation assistant, is the chat button on every page — or in your editor.

Your App, Running, in Four Commands

Clone a starter, point it at a free RESTHeart Cloud service, run it. Sign-up, login, social sign-in, password reset, teams and invitations already work — there is no server of yours to write.

These starters run on RESTHeart Cloud, the managed service. rhc is its command line: it configures your cloud service from a file in the repo. For a RESTHeart you run yourself, start from Setup instead.

# 1. get the app
git clone https://github.com/SoftInstigate/restheart-cloud-starter-react.git
cd restheart-cloud-starter-react
npm install

# 2. point it at your free RESTHeart Cloud service: paste its URL from the Connect page
#    into src/environments/environment.ts

# 3. configure the cloud service with rhc, the RESTHeart Cloud CLI (accounts, sign-up, your origin)
npm install -g @restheart-cloud/cli
rhc login                  # paste a personal access token from cloud.restheart.com
rhc setup --srv <srvId>    # the six characters at the start of your service URL

# 4. run it
npm run dev

React — sign up, check your inbox, and you are in. README →

# 1. get the app
git clone https://github.com/SoftInstigate/restheart-cloud-starter-ng.git
cd restheart-cloud-starter-ng
npm install

# 2. point it at your free RESTHeart Cloud service: paste its URL from the Connect page
#    into src/environments/environment.dev.ts

# 3. configure the cloud service with rhc, the RESTHeart Cloud CLI (accounts, sign-up, your origin)
npm install -g @restheart-cloud/cli
rhc login                  # paste a personal access token from cloud.restheart.com
rhc setup --srv <srvId>    # the six characters at the start of your service URL

# 4. run it
ng serve

Angular — sign up, check your inbox, and you are in. README →

# 1. get the app
git clone https://github.com/SoftInstigate/restheart-cloud-starter-ecommerce.git
cd restheart-cloud-starter-ecommerce
npm install

# 2. point it at your free RESTHeart Cloud service: paste its URL from the Connect page
#    into src/environments/environment.ts
#    and export your Stripe test keys, which the setup stores on the service once
export STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...
export STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_...

# 3. configure the cloud service with rhc, the RESTHeart Cloud CLI (accounts, sign-up, your origin)
npm install -g @restheart-cloud/cli
rhc login                  # paste a personal access token from cloud.restheart.com
rhc setup --srv <srvId>    # the six characters at the start of your service URL

# 4. run it
npm run dev

Ecommerce — sign up, check your inbox, and you are in. README →

Already have an app? The same pieces are on npm as @restheart-cloud/kit-react, @restheart-cloud/kit-ng and @restheart-cloud/kit-vue.

Read about the Kit and Starter Apps →

RESTHeart Features

MongoDB's best friend

RESTHeart unlocks all the features of MongoDB via REST, GraphQL and WebSocket APIs.

Also supports Mongo Atlas, FerretDB, AWS DocumentDB, and Azure Cosmos DB

Declarative Access Control

RESTHeart provides a powerful and battle-tested security layer that keeps your application secure without coding.

User Accounts

The restheart-accounts plugin covers the full user lifecycle: registration, email verification, password reset, team invitations and Google social login — all configurable, no code.

REST Data API

Read, write and search JSON documents with HTTP requests without coding; specify MongoDB queries and projection options; deal with large result sets with automatic pagination.

GraphQL Data API

The GraphQL plugin works side by side with the REST plugin to get an unified API to build modern applications. GraphQL applications are configured through an API without coding.

WebSocket Data API

The WebSocket API notifies clients of data changes in real time and supports thousands of connected clients. Data streams are configured through an API without coding.

Modern Java Framework

Build microservices in Java 25, Kotlin, JavaScript or TypeScript, powered by virtual threads, with a set of simple yet robust building blocks: Service, Provider, Interceptor, and Initializer.

Stripe Payments

Add subscriptions and one-time purchases to your app with the restheart-stripe module. Multi-tenant ready, no backend code.

Available from RESTHeart 9.8

Container friendly

RESTHeart is available as a Docker image and tailored for the GraalVM to build lightweight native images with instant startup time, low memory footprint.

Query documents from the command line with httpie.

The GET request has two query parameters: filter to apply a query and pagesize to limit the response to one document.
Here we use the brilliant httpie, a modern command line HTTP client.

More examples

$ http -b GET https://demo.restheart.org/messages'?filter={"from":"Bob"}&pagesize=1'

[
  {
    "_id": { "$oid": "5c50963e477870eb8258fa68" },
    "from": "Bob",
    "message": "was here"
  }
]

Query documents from the command line with cURL.

The GET request has two query parameters: filter to apply a query (that needs to be encoded with `-G --data-urlencode` option since it contains the curly brackets) and pagesize to limit the response to one document.
Here we use the immortal cURL!

More examples

$ curl -G --data-urlencode 'filter={"from":"Bob"}' \
  https://demo.restheart.org/messages?pagesize=1

[
  {
    "_id": { "$oid": "5c50963e477870eb8258fa68" },
    "from": "Bob",
    "message": "was here"
  }
]

Query documents with JavaScript.

The GET request has two query parameters: filter to apply a query and pagesize to limit the response to one document.
Here we use the fetch API.

Run it

const url = encodeURI('https://demo.restheart.org/messages?filter={"from":"Bob"}&pagesize=1');

fetch(url)
  .then(response => response.json())
  .then(json => JSON.stringify(json, null, 2))
  .then(docs => console.log(docs));

Query documents with Java.

The GET request has two query parameters: filter to apply a query and pagesize to limit the response to one document.
Here we use the unirest java http library.

More examples

public void printOutMessages() throws UnirestException {
  var resp = Unirest.get("https://demo.restheart.org/messages")
    .queryString("filter", "{'from':'Bob'}")
    .queryString("pagesize", "1")
    .asJson();
  
  // print out each message
  resp.getBody().getArray().forEach(msg -> 
    System.out.println(msg.toString())
  );
}

Query documents with Python.

The GET request has two query parameters: filter to apply a query and pagesize to limit the response to one document.
This example uses the popular requests library.

More examples

import requests
import json

url = "https://demo.restheart.org/messages"
params = {
    "filter": '{"from":"Bob"}',
    "pagesize": "1"
}

response = requests.get(url, params=params)
data = response.json()

print(json.dumps(data, indent=2))

Query documents with Swift.

The GET request has two query parameters: filter to apply a query and pagesize to limit the response to one document.
This example uses modern Swift with async/await (Swift 5.5+).

More examples

import Foundation

func fetchMessages() async throws {
  var components = URLComponents(string: "https://demo.restheart.org/messages")
  components?.queryItems = [
    URLQueryItem(name: "pagesize", value: "1"),
    URLQueryItem(name: "filter", value: "{\"from\":\"Bob\"}")
  ]
  
  guard let url = components?.url else {
    throw URLError(.badURL)
  }
  
  let (data, _) = try await URLSession.shared.data(from: url)
  let json = try JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data)
  print(json)
}

// Usage
Task {
  try await fetchMessages()
}

Polyglot Framework

Implement web services in minutes.

Implement a simple interface and deploy the web service by copying its jar file into the plugins directory.

See it on GitHub More examples

@RegisterPlugin(name="greetings", description="just another Hello World")
public class GreeterService implements JsonService {

  @Override
  public void handle(JsonRequest req, JsonResponse res) {
    switch(req.getMethod()) {
      case GET ->
        res.setContent(object().put("message", "Hello World!"));
      case OPTIONS ->
        handleOptions(req);
      default ->
        res.setStatusCode(HttpStatus.SC_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED);
    }
  }
}

Implement plugins in Kotlin.

You can use Java and Kotlin to implement plugins.

Kotlin Service example

@RegisterPlugin(name="kotlinGreeterService", description="just another Hello World")
class GreeterService : JsonService {

  override fun handle(req: JsonRequest, res: JsonResponse) {
    when(req.method) {
      METHOD.GET ->
        res.content = obj().put("msg", "Hello World").get()
      METHOD.OPTIONS ->
        handleOptions(req)
      else ->
        res.setStatusCode(HttpStatus.SC_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED)
    }
  }
}

Snoop and modify requests at different stages of their lifecycle.

This interceptor applies to requests of the hello web service adding a timestamp to the response content.
Interceptor can be executed at different points of the request as defined by the interceptPoint parameter of the annotation RegisterPlugin

More examples

@RegisterPlugin(
  name = "helloInterceptor",
  description = "add a timestamp to the response of /greetings",
  interceptPoint = InterceptPoint.RESPONSE)
public class HelloInterceptor implements JsonInterceptor {

  @Override
  public void handle(JsonRequest req, JsonResponse res) {
    res.getContent()
      .getAsJsonObject()
      .addProperty("timestamp", Instant.now().toString());
  }

  @Override
  public boolean resolve(JsonRequest req, JsonResponse res) {
    return req.isHandledBy("greetings");
  }
}

Implement plugins in JavaScript.

This is yet another Hello World web service.
Running RESTHeart on the GraalVM allows you to deploy JavaScript Services and Interceptors.

More examples

export const options = {
  name: "helloWorldService",
  description: "just another Hello World",
  uri: "/hello"
}

export function handle(req, res) {
  res.setContent(JSON.stringify({ msg: 'Hello World' }));
  res.setContentTypeAsJson();
}