Backend as a Service?
One of the problems I've uncovered while selling boilerplates, is that setting up and maintaining a backend is a lot of work.
Creating databases, designing models, writing APIs, deployment etc is a huge pain – especially for people who are not familiar with backend coding.
Is there any current solutions (apart from on AWS) that offer a backend/api as a service?
If not, would anyone pay for something like this? Basically - design you data models in a UI and get deployed DB on a server with an API?
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To reduce launch time, development and outsourcing cost, many companies are preferring BaaS. There are several options that you can try as backend as a service provider. If you want to get backend service from an open-source platform, then I can recommend you Parse. Actually, it is the framework that was used by Facebook till 2017, but after 2017 they are not including hosting service in BaaS. However, it is still entirely free, and with self-hosting service, you can use this platform.
Similarly, there are several other BaaS providers, and I can suggest you Firebase, Back4App and Backendless for quality services. This article https://blog.back4app.com/backend-as-a-service-baas/ could also assist you to compare almost 13 BaaS providers, pros and cons of using backend as a service with the detailed analysis of BaaS. In the same token, if you are looking for BaaS for gaming ventures, then Playfab should be your preference.
For free trials, you can also go with Kumulos, Kii and CloudKit. Hopefully, you would pick an option according to your requirements and budget.
Hi, Kyle. You should try the next no-code tools: Directual.com, Busywork.co, Appdrag.com, Anvil.works (Python), and, of course, Bubble.is. Perhaps your tasks can be solved with simple tools: Airtable, Tadabase, Retool.
Weirdly enough, there's a no-code tool that can do that.
https://bubble.io can work as a great back-end tool (runs DB, integrations, exposes APIs, and much more).
Bubble is actually an E2E solution (FE, Logic, BE, and a ton more), but if it comes to that - I'd argue that it's way easier to handle due to the nature of the tool (no-code).
It still needs some learning to get a good hang of it, but it's so much easier to get the hang of it than to start learning any other "traditional" back-end stack.
We were even experimenting with creating a (mostly) back-end Bubble template on Zeroqode (this one was targeting native mobile apps looking for a back-end solution).
Check this out if you got a moment https://zeroqode.com/backends
And let us know in case you have any questions, please!
Good luck 🙏
Been using Firebase since it came out for nearly every project. I've played around with Amplify (Amazon) but founds it's documentation severly lacking in clarity (as it's usually the case with AWS products)
https://hasura.io/ seems to be the perfect balance for that.
Can create and edit DB in UI and the graphql means you don't have to create a ton of endpoints.
I'm still learning it so take my opinions with a grain of salt :)
I looked at this a while back – seems they've started doing deploys now on Heroku.
I would also recommend Hasura, and recommend NHost for hosting & auth with Hasura.
I'm currently working on a solution adjacent to this. Trying to get rid of the repetitive setup of backend server environments by letting devs share cloud-based VMs for running their code. https:www.booste.io/
In my experience with payment, you get a lot of vague "I'd pay for this feedback" but the bar for robustness is very very high for mass adoption. Like fenske said, finding a deep niche has been the key. Dev Tools fight a constant "Build-vs-Buy" conflict when being considered. So your UX must be heroku-level simple to get any bit of traction. But companies pull it off - Firebase, Supabase (firebase competitor https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23319901) for databases.
"setting up and maintaining a backend is a lot of work" - Depends on the project of course, but for smaller SaaS, Vercel makes this problem disappear.
"Creating databases, designing models," - hosted solutions like Firestore also simplify it quite a bit.
"Is there any current solutions (apart from on AWS) that offer a backend/api as a service?" - apart from the ones mentioned, new ones emerging, e.g. https://www.deta.sh/.
"If not, would anyone pay for something like this? " - I believe you can always find a client if you niche correctly.
There are a lot of them. The whole movement is called serverless and people go very far with it. The best examples are Firebase, Vercel, and then more powerful like PostgREST and "database as a service" solutions. Also, Node ecosystem has many solutions like that, but I'm trying to avoid that area as much as I can, so I can't give you good examples. Also, check Cloud Functions on Google Cloud, Amazon Lambda on AWS, and Azure functions on Azure. Those can be a good supplement for serverless to take it even further.