Katnip is a full-stack JavaScript framework. At its core it is a plugin runner — an API and command-line tool that lets pieces of code work together under a shared standard. In practice, though, most developers don’t need to think about plugins right away. Out of the box, Katnip feels like a frictionless framework for building full-stack apps: you write pages as React components, and you have a database ready to pull data from.
Katnip was created to remove the glue code and boilerplate that usually weigh down new projects. Setting up a modern web app often means stitching together dozens of libraries, configs, and services before you can even get started. Katnip replaces that with a single system that ties everything together. Instead of wrestling with setup, you stay in a creative flow. If you want payments, you install a Stripe plugin. If you want to deploy to Cloudflare, you install the Cloudflare plugin. The pieces connect automatically, without extra wiring.
This works because Katnip is opinionated at its core. It ships with a set of defaults — database, rendering, state management — that “just work” from the moment you start. But since everything is implemented as plugins, you can disable or replace the defaults whenever you need to. The result is a system that is both simple for newcomers and flexible for advanced use.
Deployment is part of this story too. Katnip can run locally on Node, and it can deploy anywhere through plugins. Whether you choose Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify, or something else, deployment is just a matter of adding the right plugin.
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