I interpreted that as front end to a database.

It's really a whole working methodology that includes an Object model, which one would call backend.

Did I mention its a nasty fugly POS?

Yeah, it's certainly more than just a CRUD, and I agree it's awful. I never had to use it in the early years, so I don't know if it's that their original platform was poorly made, or that the accumulation of bloat & bolt-ons is what has made it this way.

Yeah but to someone who is in to working directly with RDBMSs, Salesforce is 100% front end. It's like how CEs think C is high level, but web developers think C is low level.