Proot, a web app platform

It's lightweight, easy to set up and doesn't give you bullshit. Proot is ideal for writing prototypes fast, and then gradually extending them into full-featured, modern single-page web apps, especially for existing services with APIs.

Proot is one generic backend for your all applications: you have to write zero lines of server-side code while creating a new site or app. It comes with an understandable asset pipeline and a JS library for view & state handling.

Proot runs on PHP 5.2+. The setup is a breeze, try it out.

Quick look video coming soon!

Write app packages

Write app packages

Pure HTML, CSS and JS, all in one visible directory. No app setup process.

One backend for multiple apps

One backend for multiple apps

Use database, scale images, upload files and more with familiar AJAX calls, out-of-the-box.

Run it on a basic PHP server

Run it on a basic PHP server

No more scratching your head with advanced setup processes or esoteric requirements.

Demo apps in action

Gallery & image dumper


Mobile app intro


Why should I care?

Proot excels in getting a client app up and running very fast. It’s easy to set up a quick prototype, but one that can be extended into a full-featured web app. Proot apps only include static files and there is no app setup process, so it's also very painless to create individual static sites (like this one) when you need a quick home page for your project.

It’s a joy to work with, as you don’t have to jump between languages and concerns: app packages run in a browser, and are written with only frontend languages. You don’t have to work with PHP, Ruby, Python or any other server-side language, nor do you have to touch command line or anything else beyond the files within your app directory. With Proot, you only work with things you can actually see and understand, without esoteric background wizardry.

Proot is simple. Because anything more complicated (like Rails) is just gonna break.


Proot is an open-source project authored by Jerry Jäppinen. It’s hosted on Bitbucket.

Contributions are gladly accepted as pull requests. Clone the source code and see our current tickets. You are welcome to contact Jerry for any questions or suggestions.

Proot is released under LGPL.

Jerry Jäppinen

When should I not care?

Proot is targeted to writing single-page JS web apps. Things like search engine optimization and legacy browser support aren’t part of their strengths.

Proot is also pretty early in the development, and not all things have been tested extensively. There is also no authentication system yet, and content negotiation is a bit lacking.

Since JS apps run in the browser, their source code is always available to users. While handling sensitive data with Proot is not a good idea, writing a dumb client for accessing data via an API usually is.