Skip to main content

The sweet spot between low/no code and “starting from scratch”

Refine is an open source, React meta-framework for enterprise. It provides a headless solution for everything from admin panels to dashboards and internal tools.

What is Refine?

Refine is a React meta-framework for CRUD-heavy web applications. It addresses a wide range of enterprise use cases including internal tools, admin panels, dashboards and B2B apps. Refine’s hooks and components streamline the development process by offering industry-standard solutions for crucial aspects of a project, including authentication, access control, routing, networking, state management, and i18n. Refine’s headless architecture enables the building of highly customizable applications by decoupling business logic from UI and routing. This allows integration with:
  • Any custom designs or UI frameworks like TailwindCSS, along with built-in support for Ant Design, Material UI, Mantine, and Chakra UI
  • Various platforms, including Next.js, Remix, React Native, Electron, etc., by a simple routing interface without the need for additional setup steps
Refine CORE also powers Refine’s purpose built AI agent for generating complete applications.

Why Refine?

Within the broad spectrum of development approaches, Refine occupies a unique sweet spot between “starting from scratch” with traditional development method and low-code/no-code solutions.

Problems with starting from scratch

Despite offering the ultimate level of flexibility, the “starting from scratch” method is likely to cause:
  • Project delays
  • Technical debt
  • Maintenance problems
  • Lack of development and security best practices
  • A polluted codebase
  • Lack of standardization across teams

Problems with low/no-code solutions

Low/no-code solutions address these shortcomings but create a new set of challenges:
  • Vendor lock-in
  • Lack of customization & styling options
  • Poor developer experience
  • Limited support for complex use-cases

Refine’s approach

Offering the best from both worlds, Refine mitigates all risks of “from scratch” development without compromising flexibility, agility and open technologies.

Key features

Headless architecture

Decouple business logic from UI to build highly customizable applications

15+ backend connectors

REST API, GraphQL, and integrations with Supabase, Firebase, Strapi, and more

SSR support

Built-in server-side rendering with Next.js and Remix

Authentication & access control

Providers for seamless auth flows and granular permissions

State management

Perfect state management and mutations with React Query

Refine Devtools

Dive deeper into your app with useful insights and debugging tools

Real-time applications

Out-of-the-box support for live and real-time applications

Audit logs & versioning

Easy audit logs and document versioning for compliance

Use cases

Refine shines on data-intensive enterprise B2B applications like:
  • Admin panels - Full-featured admin interfaces with authentication and CRUD operations
  • Dashboards - Data visualization and analytics dashboards with real-time updates
  • Internal tools - Custom tools for managing business operations and workflows
  • B2B applications - Customer-facing applications with complex data requirements
Check out live examples including a fully-functional CRM, admin panel, PDF invoice generator, and more.

Next steps

Installation

Set up your development environment and install Refine

Quick start

Build your first Refine app in minutes

Tutorial

Learn Refine by building a comprehensive CRUD application

Examples

Explore real-world examples and templates

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love