Backbeam.io: One BaaS to rule them all?
Hands-on experience and first thoughts
I admit it, I am a sucker for services that just works out-of-the-box. Ever since I found out that I wanted to be an iOS developer, I’ve been a fan of BaaS (Backend-as-a-Service) providers. As an iOS developer I want to focus on writing applications on not worrying on my backend, but still have the flexible of designing the backend to my needs. Because of that, I’ve been playing around with many BaaS providers for quite a while and this is my five cent on my recent discovery: Backbeam.io.
My needs
I prefer things which are simple yet powerful. My perfect BaaS would support all of my needs, but at the same time being elegant and simple. My minimum requirements for using a BaaS are as follows: 1) data management; 2) server-side logic; 3) push notifications; 4) a reasonable pricing model and of course stability and scalability.
A lot of services supports this functionality and some of the biggest I’ve been using are Parse, Firebase, Kinvey and PubNub. Not to mention open source projects such as Deployd and BaasBox.
Although I’ve been happily using Parse and Firebase without the big hassle for quite some time, I do feel like there aren’t a service which provides it all.
Backbeam.io
Recently I stumbled across Backbeam.io. I was surprised I’ve never heard it before, and I must admit I kinda had the feeling that it was too good to be true. Backbeam.io is another BaaS, providing a wide range of features. It is one of the services, in my opinion, that somehow tries to solve it all. Here are some of the cool features of Backbeam.io:
Multiple environments
If you’re on the PRO subscription (which everybody is at the moment), every project you create on Backbeam.io includes a development and a production environment. This makes it a lot easier to avoid polluting your production database.
Versioning
Another cool thing about Backbeam.io is the ability to version your backend. Let’s say you want to change the way your backend works or you just needs to test new functionality before putting it into production. Backbeam.io does a great job making this easy for you.
Simple cloud code with HTTP testing
Although I am not a big fan of developing code in the browser, Backbeam.io’s approach to cloud code or server logic is pretty straightforward. You simply just create controllers for the paths you want to override. Another cool feature which has just been added a few days ago is the ability to test the server logic right in the Backbeam.io dashboard.
Limitations
Although I feel like Backbeam.io has come a long way, there are still room for improvements. Here are some of my thoughts on how they could improve:
Transparancy
After playing around with Backbeam.io for some hours I contacted the guys on Twitter and afterwards on email. Simply for the reason that I felt that their site was lacking information about who they were and about the technical foundation for their service. Being open about the technical details of one’s service, ads credibility in my honest opinion (unless you can name drop some big customers). In other words, if someone are going to put a lot of hours in working with your service and at the same time rely on your setup, you better be open about how it works. They responded that is it built using Node.js and NoSQL with scalability in mind.
Server locations
At the moment the servers of Backbeam.io are located in Europe. They told me that they were looking into moving the servers to New York in order to be located close to the majority of their users — The American ones and at the same time be located somehow close to Europe. I think this solution is okay for the moment, I however would prefer to be able to choose my server location in the future.
Local development
As mentioned earlier, developing in the browser just seems odd to me. It makes it harder to collaborate with other users and you simply just want to use your own local development environment. Another thing is that you are dependent on having an internet connection which limits the possibilities on working with Backbeam.io while being offline. They announced on Twitter that there would be an open source version later this year.
Manual backups
This is somehow connected with my feedback on being transparent. When being highly dependent on a service like Backbeam.io I would really like to know how backups are being supported. Ideally I would be interested in doing manual backups and restoring from older backups. They told me that they were currently working on supporting manual backups.
Final thoughts
I’m a big fan of BaaS in general and I think we’ve come a long way. Backbeam.io could end up as a big player in the market if they continue to push out great features. Specially since they have the possibility to do it now, unlike Parse which I feel respond really slow with new features. This is my first article on Medium and this is my way of spreading the word about Backbeam.io and helping them getting even more awesome. Good luck guys! PS: No, I do not work at Backbeam.io.
