DearPOS

Yeah, it's a POS. Just not the way you mean it.

Open-source point-of-sale for the small shops, cafés, and restaurants tired of paying Square 2.6% to rent software they'll never own.

Built in Spokane by Engindearing.

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What it is

• Self-hostable. Run it on your own server. No subscription. No vendor lock-in. Apache-2.0.
• Hardware-optional. Accept cards on the iPhone or Android in your pocket via Tap to Pay — no card reader required to start. Plug in a BBPOS WisePOS E ($349) when you outgrow that.
• Built for the way real shops work. Two business profiles ship in v0.1:
  • restaurant — table service, modifiers (no pickles, extra cheese, well done), kitchen tickets, split tickets
  • cafe-retail — quick ring-up, SKU + barcode scan, modifier-heavy drinks (12oz oat latte, decaf, +oat milk)
• Stripe Terminal for cards. 2.7% + $0.05 tap/swipe — same Stripe account as the rest of your business.
• Offline-first. When the WiFi dies, the line keeps moving. Orders queue locally and sync when you're back online.

Status

DearPOS is in active development as of May 2026. Following along is welcome; running it in production is not recommended yet.

v0.1 ships:

• Item catalog with variants and modifier groups
• Two business profile presets (restaurant + café/retail)
• Web admin (Next.js)
• iPad / Android terminal (Expo)
• Stripe Terminal checkout (Tap to Pay + BT readers)
• Receipt printing (BT thermal + SMS via Twilio)
• PIN-based staff auth + shift reports
• End-of-day Z-report

v0.2 and beyond: Kitchen Display System (KDS), table layout / floor plan, real inventory deductions with reorder points, online ordering, gift cards, loyalty, multi-location, Square Reader as alternate processor.

Quick start

Repo is being scaffolded. The instructions below describe the intended developer experience for v0.1 — they don't all work yet.

git clone https://github.com/engindearing-projects/dearpos.git
cd dearpos
bun install

# Spin up Postgres locally (or point DATABASE_URL at one you have)
docker compose up -d postgres
bun run db:push
bun run db:seed   # seeds a sample restaurant + a sample café

# Web admin at http://localhost:3000/admin
bun run dev

# In a second terminal — POS terminal app
bun run dev:terminal

Architecture

dearpos/
├── apps/
│   ├── web/          # Next.js 16 admin dashboard + customer-facing site
│   └── terminal/     # Expo (iPad / Android tablet) POS terminal
├── packages/
│   ├── core/         # Shared types, business profiles, calculation logic
│   └── db/           # Prisma schema and client
└── docs/             # Self-host guides, profile authoring, API reference

Stack: Next.js 16 · Expo · Prisma · Postgres · Stripe Terminal · Tailwind v4 · Bun

Design principles:

• The data model is one spine, not two. A "12oz oat latte, decaf, +oat milk" and a "burger, no pickles, well done" are the same primitive (Item → Variant → ModifierGroup → Modifier). Profile configs decide which fields are visible and how the UI renders them — they don't fork the schema.
• Inventory is opt-in. v0.1 tracks orders, not stock. InventoryComponent exists in the schema so v0.2 can wire deductions in without remodeling.
• Money is Decimal everywhere. Floats touch nothing.
• Local-first via SQLite cache + sync queue on the terminal. Postgres is the source of truth, but a network blip cannot stop a transaction.

Why we built this

We were building a custom POS for Jewel of the North, a Spokane restaurant. Halfway through, we realized every other small shop in the city wants the same thing: software that fits their business, doesn't take 2.6% off the top forever, and doesn't disappear if a Toronto SaaS company gets acquired.

So we open-sourced it.

If you run a small shop, café, or restaurant — anywhere, but especially in Spokane — and you want to stop renting your POS, open an issue or email j@engindearing.soy. We're picking the first ten shops to onboard personally.

Contributing

We're not ready for outside PRs against the v0.1 milestone yet — the architecture is still moving fast. If you want to help, the most useful thing right now is:

1. Run it. When the quick start works end-to-end, we'll say so. Try to break it.
2. Open issues for the shop or restaurant you actually run. Concrete edge cases beat abstract feedback every time. "Our café charges different milk prices for hot vs. iced" is a perfect issue.
3. Profile authors wanted. If you run a vertical we don't ship a profile for (food truck, bakery, salon, bottle shop), tell us how it should look.

License

Apache-2.0. Use it commercially. Sell support and customization on it. Just don't sue us.