The Sails Company
Sails is a convention-over-configuration MVC framework for Node.js that enables teams to build production-ready, data-driven applications in weeks rather than months. It bundles the Waterline ORM for unified data access across multiple databases, blueprint APIs for automatic CRUD endpoints, and a virtual request interpreter that makes the same code work over both HTTP and WebSockets. The framework is compatible with any front-end, from React to custom hardware, and is written entirely in JavaScript.
- Developer Tools
- Software Only
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Founder details are not available yet.
Product
Problem
Building enterprise-grade Node.js applications from scratch is time-consuming and requires repetitive boilerplate code for data access, API endpoints, and realtime communication. Developers must also manage the complexity of supporting multiple front-end frameworks, databases, and realtime features while maintaining a scalable, service-oriented architecture.
Solution
Sails provides a convention-over-configuration MVC framework for Node.js that lets teams build practical, production-ready apps in weeks rather than months. The framework bundles Waterline, a powerful ORM that offers a unified data access layer across MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, and local disk, with support for cross-database associations and joins. Sails includes blueprint APIs that automatically generate search, pagination, sorting, filtering, create, update, destroy, and association endpoints with a single command. The framework's virtual request interpreter translates incoming socket messages, making them compatible with every route and existing Express middleware, so the same code works over both HTTP and WebSockets. Built on Express and socket.io, Sails exposes raw low-level objects when needed and remains compatible with any front-end framework, from React to custom hardware.
Target Audience
Primary users are JavaScript developers and engineering teams at small to enterprise-scale organizations building data-driven web and mobile applications that require API backends, realtime features, and multi-database support.
Features
- Waterline ORM with officially supported adapters for MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, and local disk, plus 30+ community adapters
- Blueprint API generator that produces full CRUD, search, pagination, sorting, filtering, and association endpoints by running `sails generate api`
- Virtual request interpreter that normalizes parameters, sessions, and streaming for both HTTP and WebSocket requests, including existing Express routes and middleware
- Policy-based security and role-based access control that runs before controllers and actions, interchangeable with Express/Connect middleware and compatible with Passport
- Built-in Grunt integration for customizable front-end asset workflow with support for LESS, SASS, Stylus, CoffeeScript, JST, Jade, Handlebars, Dust, plus automatic minification, gzipping, and CDN deployment
- Support for multiple named associations per model and cross-database joins spanning NoSQL and relational boundaries
- Fully written in JavaScript, eliminating context-shifting between server-side and client-side languages