Parse Drops the BaaS

So, the veritably seismic news of the week, should you rely on Parse for mBaaS services, is they're pulling a StackMob:

We have a difficult announcement to make. Beginning today we’re winding down the Parse service, and Parse will be fully retired after a year-long period ending on January 28, 2017. We’re proud that we’ve been able to help so many of you build great mobile apps, but we need to focus our resources elsewhere…

If you think hosted services are a business opportunity, here’s source for a head start :

Parse Server was built in Node.js and works with the Express web application framework. It can be added to existing web applications, or run by itself. Check out the server and migration guides here, the open-source repository here, and the example project here. We encourage you to provide bug reports and feedback via the GitHub issues on the Parse Server repository. There’s even a developer wiki, which can be found here.

Nearly everything you’ll need for your app is supported in Parse Server, with the main exceptions of Push delivery, Analytics, and Config…

So, that’s something. For a great roundup of rants and insights on just how little that something is, head over to Michael Tsai’s and check out Sunsetting Parse. All worth reading to share the pain, but here’s some particularly good giggles:

Guy English:

If it had been me shutting down Parse I would have changed the home page to not point out how many "Trust Us."

Jeff Lawson:

But seriously developers, trust us next time your needs temporarily overlap our strategic interests. And, here’s a t-shirt.

Joel Bernstein:

The subtext to the Parse shutdown is "never trust a Facebook platform ever again, for any reason."

Feel the burn!

Moving on, you can always take Marco Arment’s advice:

For whatever it’s worth, running your own Linux servers today with boring old databases and stable languages is neither difficult nor expensive. This isn’t to say "I told you so"—rather, if you haven’t tried before, "You can do this."

But if you’d really, seriously, rather not have to add maintaining your own backend to your load, there’s a crowdsourced list here that looks good:

ParseAlternatives: a collaborative list of Parse alternative backend service providers.

Current categories are:

• General purpose providers
• Push notification providers
• Analytics and Push notification providers
• Backends for Game developers
• Open-source solutions
• Parse Server providers

Personally, we’d like to try out CloudKit one of these days…