Self-hosting
Can you self-host a Base44 app?
Half of it. The half your users can see.
Self-hosting means running your software on servers you control instead of renting it as a service. For a Base44 app the honest answer is split: the frontend can be self-hosted today, because the export hands it to you as code. The backend can't, because Base44 doesn't give it to you in any form. This page walks through what that leaves you with.
The assessment is free, and "stay on Base44" is a real answer I give.
What can you actually self-host?
The line runs exactly where the export stops.
Base44's export gives you the frontend code, and code can live anywhere: your server, a cheap web host, a free static-hosting service. Nothing stops you doing this today.
The database, logins, file storage and hidden logic are services Base44 runs, not software it hands over. There's nothing to download, so there's nothing to install on your server.
So a self-hosted Base44 app, in the full sense, means one thing: the frontend you already have, plus a backend that gets built on your infrastructure to replace the one that stays behind.
Your three realistic options
Every path from here is a version of one of these. None of them is wrong; they suit different situations.
Underrated. If the platform is doing its job and the bill is fair, staying costs nothing and ships features fastest. Export the code anyway as insurance, and revisit when something on this list starts to pinch.
Keep the exported frontend, rebuild the database, logins, files and logic on servers or cloud accounts you own, move the data, then switch. This is the full self-hosting answer — everything, everywhere, yours.
Treat Base44 as the prototype it may have been and have the real product built fresh. Slowest and most expensive, but sometimes right, usually when the app has outgrown its own design, not just its platform.
The middle option is the work I do. What it costs, how the risk is removed and how the process runs are on the Base44 migration page.
Before you choose: what owning it really means
Self-hosting is a trade, and it's fair to see both sides before making it. On Base44, updates, security patches and keeping the lights on are the platform's problem — that's a genuine service, and you've been getting it. On your own infrastructure, those jobs come home. Someone has to apply updates, watch for failures and test that backups actually restore.
What you get back is that no one else's pricing meeting, product pivot or shutdown can reach your app. For a side project, that trade often isn't worth it. For a business whose revenue runs through the app, it usually is. Knowing which one you're running is most of the decision.
Questions people ask about self-hosting Base44
The frontend, yes: the export is ordinary code and any web host can serve it. But on its own it's a phone with no SIM: it looks right and connects to nothing, because the database and logins it talks to are still on Base44's side.
Not from Base44, as I write this. What exists in the open-source world are tools built around leaving, community migration projects, rather than a version of the platform you can download and run.
Four reasons come up again and again: control over costs, control over data, compliance questions from bigger customers, and an investor asking what the company actually owns. All four are really the same wish — that the app answers to you.
Sometimes, but that's the wrong scoreboard. You're trading a subscription for server bills plus responsibility: updates, backups and security are now someone's job on your side. The honest win is predictability and ownership, with cost savings as a maybe.
Export the frontend code today and put it in a repository you own. It takes minutes, changes nothing on the running app, and turns "the platform has everything" into "the platform has half".
Work out which option is yours
30 minutes on a call. We look at your app, your team and your reasons, and you leave with a straight recommendation — including "stay put" if that's the truth.
Book a migration assessment →Free, no obligation, and nothing changes on your app until you decide.