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Directus is a backend for developers. It can connect to any SQL database and asset storage, and it provides developer tooling — which the Directus team calls the "Data Engine" — alongside a web application that lets both developers and non-developers manipulate data and assets through a no-code interface called the "Data Studio."
Directus also offers granular access control, meaning end users can only see, manipulate, and interact with the data allowed by their role and access policy — enforced consistently by both the engine and the studio. It's extensible through its own marketplace, and it's completely free, with a free license available.
Directus is also known as a headless CMS — meaning it doesn't ship with a front end attached out of the box, the way WordPress traditionally did. You can pair it with whichever front end you prefer; TanStack Start is my front end of choice.
I'll self-host Directus on my Coolify-managed VPS, walk through both setup methods, and — since nothing ever works perfectly on the first try — fix the actual errors I hit along the way.
The network for creativity
Join 1.25M professional creatives like you
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Creatives on Contra have earned over $150M and we are just getting started
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nice work
QuizDash is a full-stack trivia quiz app I built end-to-end with Flask and SQLite, from database design through deployment. Players select a category and difficulty level, then race a countdown timer that scales with difficulty — harder questions are worth more points but allow less time to answer. I designed the SQLite schema for questions and scores, built out the backend routes for fetching randomized questions, submitting scores, and aggregating leaderboard rankings via SQL, and implemented session-based authentication for a password-protected admin panel where questions can be added or deleted without touching the database directly.
On the frontend, I used vanilla JavaScript and Jinja2 templates (no framework) to handle the quiz flow, live countdown bar, and a post-quiz review screen showing right vs. wrong answers per question. The layout is fully responsive, adapting from a stacked single-column view on mobile to a side-by-side quiz-and-leaderboard layout on desktop. The app is deployed live on Render with secrets (session key, admin password) managed through environment variables rather than hardcoded in the codebase.
