First BaaS in our review is Backendless. Backendless is the most “all-in-one” solution I’ve found so far. Moreover, it provides „Parse-to-Backendless” migration guide which can be very handy this day.

CMS

I need to say that Backendless has one of the best CMS I’ve used during this research. It’s easy to create a table, add a column or rename anything.

Relations

Backendless supports one-to-one and one-to-many relations. It is very easy to join objects as a relation. It is a matter of clicking at “+” button inside relation column. After clicking the button, you are able to select related objects. It is really awesome, very useful feature which we miss in Parse. Checking the id, copying it and then pasting it was really a pain.

User management

User management is not all about another database table. It is represented as a separate feature of Backendless. List of possibilities is quite big. You are able to register into the app with e-mail and social accounts. As an administrator, you are able to force users e-mail verification which is always handled by a server, not a mobile app. Moreover, you are able to set custom properties for users profile.

Custom scripts

Backendless supports your own custom scripts inside „Business Logic” section. Events scripts are fired after some event (after/before create/update/delete), but scheduled scripts are fired based on time. Backendless supports Java and PHP as a language for custom scripts.

Backendless supports also node.js, but not for events/scheduled scripts. http://bit.ly/1V390iF

SDK/REST API

Every app inside Backendless has it own REST API, Android and iOS SDK. It is possible to retrieve data from API or directly from SDK. iOS version is written in Objective-C, so it doesn’t fit for Swift project so well. It is possible to use SDK inside Swift project but without Swift super-powers. I don’t know if I would prefer using the SDK over the REST API.

SDK allows to download data, filter it with a query. Putting, deleting an object also won’t be a problem. Moreover, it has some additional possibilities like easy video streaming.

It is important to keep it in mind that mobile is not a web world. For example, our smartphones have battery limitations and developers should limit API requests to the minimum. Backendless allows you to filter objects properties which you want to receive. This request https://api.backendless.com/v1/data/Event?loadRelations=image&props=name will return all Events with image relation and only name property.

Push notifications

Push notifications are available inside Messaging module. Messages can be sent only to one platform or to selected devices. It is rather the same as it was on Parse.

Documentation

Documentation is well written and quite easy to navigate. I had one issue with it. At the beginning I though that iOS SDK allows only to login. Luckily, I was wrong. Keep that in mind that left panel (the same as inside the CSM) is used to switch between documentation modules and it won’t redirect you to your app CMS.

Pricing

Pricing is something strange here. Backendless doesn’t use standard system, which is „pay for traffic/storage” or anything like that. In Backendless you need to buy a „Functional Pack” or rather packs to create your dream setup. Do you have more than 1000 active users? You need to buy a pack ($1/month). Additional 100 tables? It’s $5/month. Free version is functionally limited.

I liked Parse that it didn’t force you to pay until your app is on the market. Well, with Backendless it is also possible to run your app and postpone additional cost until a first release, but … one restriction is really a pain. The free version allows you to have only 1 developer inside a team. The unlimited size cost another $10/month. Passing credential to the account for someone else will not work because Backendless take care about sessions and kill the previous session after second log-in.

Last word…

I think that Backendless is one of the best mBaaS services available right now. It is easy to use for admin, and people responsible for a content and for mobile developers as well. It gives them a possibility to use SDK or REST API.

Pricing is strange. For some cases, it can be nice, for some it may be the worst type of payment. It depends on the app.

Question: What do you think about Backendless? Share your thoughts in comments, especially if you are the Backendless user more than 1 week ;)