I love Pocketbase! In particular using it as framework. I use it as CMS and auth system and add my custom application routes to the server. It's very easy to seamlessly leverage all its infrastructure.
PocketBase is great too. Manifest brings something different: it's fully code-based, so you can stay in your IDE, use AI tools like Copilot or Cursor to build your backend, and keep everything versioned in Git. It fits naturally into dev workflows, and we’ve got more coming soon on the AI side, both around AI and new features.