Service
Directus Development
In short
Directus is an open-source data platform that wraps any SQL database with a REST and GraphQL API, an admin app, roles, and automation. Kryeo models your data in it, builds the flows and permissions, and deploys it self-hosted on infrastructure you own.
Updated 25 Aug 2026 · 4 min read
Directus is an open-source data platform. Kryeo models your data in it, builds the permissions and automation, and deploys it self-hosted: a REST and GraphQL API, an admin app, and a roles system over a SQL database you own.
What Directus is
Point Directus at a SQL database and it gives you four things at once:
- An API: REST and GraphQL, generated from your schema, that any front end or app consumes.
- An admin app: a clean editing interface your content and operations teams use directly.
- Roles and permissions: field-level, with rules. Editors, reviewers, operations, and read-only API clients each see exactly what they should.
- Flows: event- and schedule-driven automation such as publish hooks, webhooks, notifications, data sync, and approval routing.
Because it sits on a standard SQL database and does not hide the schema, the data stays portable. If you ever move off Directus, the database is just a database.
What Kryeo builds
- Data models: collections, relationships, and validation designed for how the content and product teams actually work, not just what is quick to set up.
- Permissions: role structures for editorial workflows, operations, and external API consumers.
- Flows: automation and integrations, such as syncing to a search index, pushing to a marketing tool, routing content for approval, or generating derived data.
- The API layer: the queries and endpoints your website, app, or storefront depends on, with caching where it matters.
- Deployment: Directus, its database, file storage, and a CI pipeline, on a host you control.
- Migrations: schema and config as code, so environments stay in sync and changes are reviewable.
How we approach a Directus build
The data model is the project. We spend the early time on collections and relationships, because a model that matches the real domain makes everything after it (permissions, Flows, the API, the editing experience) straightforward, and a model that does not makes all of it a fight.
Schema and configuration are version-controlled and applied through migrations, so staging and production never drift and every change goes through review.
Directus vs a SaaS CMS
| Kryeo | SaaS CMS (e.g. Contentful, Sanity) | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the data lives | Your SQL database, on your infrastructure | The vendor's cloud |
| Pricing model | Hosting cost; licence fee above a revenue threshold | Per-seat and per-API-call, scaling with usage |
| Beyond content | Also an admin panel and API for any data, internal tools included | Content modelling focused |
| Existing databases | Introspects and exposes them directly | Requires importing content into the vendor's model |
| Vendor lock-in | Low; the database is standard SQL | Content and workflows are tied to the platform |
Work with us
Whether it is a new Directus build, a rescue of a messy instance, a migration from another CMS, or an API layer over a database you already have, tell us the shape of it.
FAQ
Directus Development: common questions
Directus is an open-source data platform. You point it at a SQL database, new or existing, and it gives you a REST and GraphQL API over that data, an admin application for editing it, a granular roles-and-permissions system, and a visual automation builder called Flows. It is self-hosted and does not alter your database schema behind your back.
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