KitchenAsty: A TypeScript Monorepo Alternative to Toast and Square

I built an open-source alternative to Toast and Square for restaurant management

Sharang Parnerkar developed KitchenAsty, a modern, self-hosted restaurant management platform built as a TypeScript monorepo. The system includes 330+ tests and 118 API endpoints to handle ordering, reservations, and kitchen workflows.

Why This Matters

Small restaurants often face a binary choice between expensive SaaS platforms like Toast, costing $100-$300/month, and outdated PHP-based open-source projects that are difficult to extend. KitchenAsty addresses this by providing a type-safe, Docker-ready architecture that allows developers to deploy a full-stack ordering and management system in a single afternoon without vendor lock-in.

Key Insights

• The project utilizes 27,000 lines of TypeScript across 118 API endpoints to ensure strict type safety (2026).
• Monorepo architecture with npm workspaces enables immediate visibility of shared type changes across Admin, Storefront, and Server components.
• Prisma ORM is used by KitchenAsty to manage 30 database models with type-safe queries that catch errors at build time.
• Real-time kitchen display and order tracking are implemented using Socket.IO for room-based broadcasting.
• The stack uses React 18 and Vite for web interfaces alongside React Native and Expo for mobile customer experiences.

Working Examples

Commands to initialize the PostgreSQL database and launch the development environment for server, admin, and storefront components.

docker compose up -d && npm run dev:server && npm run dev:admin && npm run dev:storefront

Practical Applications

• Small Restaurant Deployment: Implementing self-hosted management on Ubuntu via Docker Compose to eliminate SaaS subscription fees. Pitfall: Neglecting regular PostgreSQL backups can lead to critical data loss of orders and reservations.
• Custom Kitchen Workflow: Utilizing the Socket.IO Kanban board for real-time order progression. Pitfall: Insufficient structured logging can make it difficult to debug order synchronization issues during peak hours.

References:

• https://dev.to/mighty840/i-built-an-open-source-alternative-to-toast-and-square-for-restaurant-management-3mdf