Grit vs Encore
This is the most apples-to-apples backend comparison we have — both are Go frameworks, and Encore is a strong, well-engineered one. But they aim at different problems. Encore is a backend framework built around infrastructure from code: you declare databases, pub/sub, caches, and cron in your Go, and Encore provisions and wires them. Grit is a full-stack meta-framework whose headline is a generated React admin, batteries, and typed web/mobile/desktop clients from one command.
The short version
Reach for Encore when you're building a distributed Go backend — microservices, service-to-service calls, and infrastructure you'd rather declare than hand-provision, with tracing and API docs out of the box. Reach for Grit when you're building a full-stack product — a Go API, a generated admin panel, auth and roles, and web/mobile/desktop clients — and you'd rather generate the whole app than assemble the frontend and admin yourself.
Different centers of gravity
Encore's gravity is the backend and its infrastructure — provisioning, wiring, and observability, with a strong local dev dashboard and an optional managed cloud. Grit's gravity is the full stack — one grit generate resource gives you a model, service, handler, Zod schema, TS types, React Query hooks, and an admin page. Neither tries to be the other.
Side by side
| Grit | Encore | |
|---|---|---|
| Backend language | Go (Gin + GORM) | Go or TypeScript |
| Core idea | Full-stack app + generated admin | Infrastructure from code |
| Admin panel | Generated, Filament-like | Not in scope |
| Frontend / mobile / desktop clients | Generated (Next.js/Vite, Expo, Wails) | Not in scope |
| Typed API → client | Generated Go → TS + Zod | Type-safe service-to-service |
| Auth + RBAC | Built in (roles + permissions) | Bring your own |
| Infra provisioning | You wire it (Docker) | Automatic, local + cloud |
| Observability / tracing | Audit log + Sentinel | Built-in distributed tracing |
| Background jobs / cron | Built in (asynq) | Built in (cron, pub/sub) |
| Deploy model | Self-host (container / single binary) | Own cloud or Encore Cloud |
Choose Grit when
- You want a generated, Filament-like admin panel out of the box.
- You need typed web, mobile, and desktop clients from one API.
- You want batteries — auth, RBAC, storage, email, jobs, backups — included.
- You'd rather self-host plain Go + Docker with no platform to adopt.
Choose Encore when
- You're building a distributed backend of microservices, not a single app.
- You want infrastructure declared in code and provisioned automatically.
- Built-in distributed tracing, API docs, and a dev dashboard matter to you.
- Type-safe service-to-service calls and cloud provisioning are the point.
The honest trade-off
Encore does things Grit doesn't: it automates infrastructure provisioning, gives you distributed tracing and API docs for free, and is genuinely built for microservices — if that's your shape, it's excellent, and its managed cloud is a real convenience. Grit doesn't provision infrastructure or trace distributed calls; it assumes a more conventional single-service app you deploy as a container. What Grit gives back is the whole front of the app — a generated admin and typed web/mobile/desktop clients — plus batteries and self-hosted plain Go with no platform lock-in. If your product is a distributed backend, use Encore. If it's a full-stack app that needs an admin and clients, that's the part Encore leaves to you — and the part Grit generates.