What is Frappe Framework? Build Powerful Web Apps Fast

👤 Author: Collins Kiprotich
📧 Email: kiprotichcollince34@gmail.com

Have you ever wanted to build powerful, data-driven web apps quickly — without having to set up everything from scratch?

Let me introduce you to Frappe Framework, a full-stack open-source web framework built with Python and JavaScript. It’s the engine behind ERPNext — and it might just become your new favorite dev tool.

🚀 What is Frappe Framework?

Full-stack web application framework that uses Python and MariaDB on the server side and a tightly integrated client side library.

Built for ERPNext.

It was originally created to power ERPNext, but it’s completely modular and can be used independently to build CRMs, CMSs, school systems, and more.

Key Features

Full-Stack Framework: Frappe covers both front-end and back-end development, allowing developers to build complete applications using a single framework.
Built-in Admin Interface: Provides a pre-built, customizable admin dashboard for managing application data, reducing development time and effort.
Role-Based Permissions: Comprehensive user and role management system to control access and permissions within the application.
REST API: Automatically generated RESTful API for all models, enabling easy integration with other systems and services.
Customizable Forms and Views: Flexible form and view customization using server-side scripting and client-side JavaScript.
Report Builder: Powerful reporting tool that allows users to create custom reports without writing any code.

Production Setup

Managed Hosting

You can try Frappe Cloud, a simple, user-friendly and sophisticated open-source platform to host Frappe applications with peace of mind.

It takes care of installation, setup, upgrades, monitoring, maintenance and support of your Frappe deployments. It is a fully featured developer platform with an ability to manage and control multiple Frappe deployments.

Try on Frappe Cloud

Self Hosting

Docker

Prerequisites: docker, docker-compose, git. Refer Docker Documentation for more details on Docker setup.

Run following commands:

git clone https://github.com/frappe/frappe_docker
cd frappe_docker
docker compose -f pwd.yml up -d

After a couple of minutes, site should be accessible on your localhost port: 8080. Use below default login credentials to access the site.

Username: Administrator
Password: admin

See Frappe Docker for ARM based docker setup.

Development Setup

Manual Install

The Easy Way: our install script for bench will install all dependencies (e.g. MariaDB). See https://github.com/frappe/bench for more details.

New passwords will be created for the Frappe "Administrator" user, the MariaDB root user, and the frappe user (the script displays the passwords and saves them to ~/frappe_passwords.txt).

Local

To setup the repository locally follow the steps mentioned below:

Setup bench by following the Installation Steps and start the server
```
 bench start
```

In a separate terminal window, run the following commands:

 # Create a new site
 bench new-site frappe.dev

 # Map your site to localhost
 bench --site frappe.dev add-to-hosts

Open the URL http://frappe.dev:8000/app in your browser, you should see the app running

Learning and community

Frappe School - Learn Frappe Framework and ERPNext from the various courses by the maintainers or from the community.
Official documentation - Extensive documentation for Frappe Framework.
Discussion Forum - Engage with community of Frappe Framework users and service providers.
buildwithhussain.com - Watch Frappe Framework being used in the wild to build world-class web apps.

🧠 Wrapping Up

Frappe Framework is a powerhouse for building web apps fast — and pairing it with Docker makes it even smoother. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced dev, Frappe + Docker is a combination that saves time and boosts productivity.

Before diving into Frappe, check out my introduction to ERPNext here.

Frappe Framework