Parse is different from Heroku is a very big way - vendor lock-in. You are using the Parse libraries, DB, push notifications, etc, and replacing that will be quite difficult. Heroku, on the other hand, is usually just a generic Rails stack (or java or clojure), which is easily moved.
The client API requires that you provide it your app's global credentials. These are likely to be baked right into the code, so can be easily extracted from the binary. It looks like the entire datastore is mutable/queryable after authentication by default. Privileges can be revoked on datastores after creation, which is obviously not ideal since it limits your app's capabilities.
In its current form, this is inappropriate for all but the most basic use cases.
Hi Scott. Just to clarify, the client API does not use the app's global credentials, but the client credentials which have their access limited in several ways. One is the per-column access configuration, which lets you set up objects where access is restricted to users with the relevant token. The other main security restriction is user-based authentication, which ensures user data can only be updated by a client authenticated as that user. The combination of these security methods handle a lot of use cases, and we're always looking to add more security functionality to make more use cases work securely.
If you have a specific application in mind, I'd love to chat with you about how it maps onto our security model. Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].
Why am I being downvoted? As responsible engineers, we should be deeply suspicious of anything coming from the client. This product flies in the face of that wisdom.
Parse sounds like it will be another Urban Airship, not Heroku, unless:
- They enormously extend their offering to support development of arbitrary server-side code.
- They figure out how to do this in a way that doesn't introduce inescapable lock-in for application developers.
- They figure out how to differentiate this offering from what similar server-side deployment/platform services already provide (Heroku, EC2, AppEngine, whatever).
That's not to say UA or Parse won't ever see a big exit (in this market, who knows). Rather, I seriously doubt -- in either case -- that the economics are there for more than a profitable "lifestyle business".
(no negativity implied -- I favor lifestyle businesses, but VCs don't).
In regards to your first bullet, one of Parse's competitors, CloudMine, allows developers to write their own server-side JavaScript code that executes within a sandboxed environment: https://cloudmine.me/developer_zone#code/overview
Urban Airship has something like 55 employees, just acquired SimpleGeo for several million, and just closed a $15m Series C from top VCs. May we all be cursed with such a "lifestyle business."
Engineer from StackMob here (http://stackmob.com). We agree that the need to extend your API on the server side is a huge part of what we are working to achieve in this space. That is why we have always had our "custom code" offerring, allowing you to extend your API in Scala, Java or Clojure. Our partnership with Heroku has also opened up Rails applications to be extensions to your API as well.
As for lock-in we have always said from the beginning that our customers own their data and can take it with them at any time. I think you may find a recent blog post by our co-founder of interest as well: http://www.stackmob.com/2011/11/why-a-paas-for-mobile-develo...
That is why ideas are many but execution is key to a success of a startup. There are many ways I can see Parse getting to a size that of Heroku.
You may not see the potential and that's because you have no idea of what's coming up and I'm sure the founders at Parse have that piece of information and it's going to be at least a $200M exit if they execute to their vision.
If I could commit a couple of years of my life to work at a company right now (and hey, I may still be able to depending on various circumstances) Parse would certainly be up there.
Seems like an awesome product, and user feedback from pretty much everyone involved has been overwhelmingly positive. That's a good combination.
Great round well deserved.
(Full disclosure, this isn't a space I've worked in before, I'm just going on what people I respect who are in the space have said)
If I could commit a couple of years of my life to work at a company right now (and hey, I may still be able to depending on various circumstances) Parse would certainly be up there.
Well if you change your mind, we are certainly hiring. Just send a resume to [email protected] ;-)
I've been using Parse to build one my apps votespot. As the others said, it's one of the easiest framework to integrate with your project. The team are very helpful and listen to users problems, they even answer emails on weekends. Again kudos to the team. Sorry if I've been bugging you guys with questions and non-sense issues =)
This morning Adobe announced that they were shutting down Flash for mobile (vendor lock-in): Everyone praising.
This afternoon, we have Parse that raises 5.5M$ (More vendor lock-in): Most people praising.
To me, Parse sounds like an utopia. It does look very promising and the premise is very interesting. However, what happens if you need to move to some other backend (If you hit an Instagr.am's hockey puck growth for example)?
If you want analytics on your backend?
How about if you need to moderate some of your content?
Lots of black magic and while you can just switch a DNS entry on heroku, you can't do so on Parse...
A couple notes. Analytics and content moderation are possible right now through the REST API - we have developers using the API for both of those in fact.
You can also moderate content manually through the data browser.
As far as scalability goes, our team has a lot of experience designing web-scale products. We're designing Parse from the ground up to scale. If anyone has an application that they're concerned how Parse can handle the load, we're glad to chat about it - just drop us a line at [email protected].
Parse probably has the easiest-to-integrate library I have ever used...in my life. It took me five minutes to have a database backend to store 'share event's for my mobile apps.
How similar is Parse to Urban Airship? I notice Parse lists push notifications on their homepage, and that seems to be one of the big things about Urban Airship.
Parse offers a lot besides push notifications as well - you can store arbitrary data on Parse, do user authentication, and access the data from non-mobile devices using the REST API. We'd be glad to answer any other questions you have at [email protected].
It depends on your definition. Define Heroku as web servers in the cloud. Then sure nothing alike. Define Heroku more generally as Web back end in the cloud. Then define parse as mobile back end in the cloud. They now share "back end in the cloud" and differ on what back end they provide with some overlap.
Thanks! We thrive on user feedback so feel free to send us suggestions for new features or ideas about what could be made easier in mobile development. [email protected]
Parse user here, I think it's great. I'm curious to see if they do anything with their Facebook integration. I could see them building a user interest profile based on what apps the user has which could be very valuable to both developers and advertisers.
While I love the idea I wonder how dangerous it is set your business on top of this thing given the possibility Parse can go out of business some time in the future? I mean, it ain't no AWS backed by Amazon that has quite the track record.
Remember that the alternative is no business at all.
We have a similar product where we provide a backend for game developers, and there are quite a few of them making quite a lot of money on it. But without us, those single developers or small teams simply wouldn't be able to pull off the games that they do, because they don't have the knowledge or resources to make the backend systems we offer.
If you can afford to make your own backend systems, you're not the target for Parse, or us.
(Oh, and it's not like AWS has a 100% stellar track record either. :-) )
[+] [-] kennystone|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scotth|14 years ago|reply
In its current form, this is inappropriate for all but the most basic use cases.
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
If you have a specific application in mind, I'd love to chat with you about how it maps onto our security model. Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected].
[+] [-] scotth|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nupark2|14 years ago|reply
- They enormously extend their offering to support development of arbitrary server-side code.
- They figure out how to do this in a way that doesn't introduce inescapable lock-in for application developers.
- They figure out how to differentiate this offering from what similar server-side deployment/platform services already provide (Heroku, EC2, AppEngine, whatever).
That's not to say UA or Parse won't ever see a big exit (in this market, who knows). Rather, I seriously doubt -- in either case -- that the economics are there for more than a profitable "lifestyle business".
(no negativity implied -- I favor lifestyle businesses, but VCs don't).
[+] [-] tmcneal|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordanrw|14 years ago|reply
As for lock-in we have always said from the beginning that our customers own their data and can take it with them at any time. I think you may find a recent blog post by our co-founder of interest as well: http://www.stackmob.com/2011/11/why-a-paas-for-mobile-develo...
[+] [-] startupcto|14 years ago|reply
You may not see the potential and that's because you have no idea of what's coming up and I'm sure the founders at Parse have that piece of information and it's going to be at least a $200M exit if they execute to their vision.
[+] [-] alexholehouse|14 years ago|reply
Seems like an awesome product, and user feedback from pretty much everyone involved has been overwhelmingly positive. That's a good combination.
Great round well deserved.
(Full disclosure, this isn't a space I've worked in before, I'm just going on what people I respect who are in the space have said)
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
Well if you change your mind, we are certainly hiring. Just send a resume to [email protected] ;-)
[+] [-] aherlambang|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffreymcmanus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pothibo|14 years ago|reply
This morning Adobe announced that they were shutting down Flash for mobile (vendor lock-in): Everyone praising.
This afternoon, we have Parse that raises 5.5M$ (More vendor lock-in): Most people praising.
To me, Parse sounds like an utopia. It does look very promising and the premise is very interesting. However, what happens if you need to move to some other backend (If you hit an Instagr.am's hockey puck growth for example)?
If you want analytics on your backend?
How about if you need to moderate some of your content?
Lots of black magic and while you can just switch a DNS entry on heroku, you can't do so on Parse...
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
https://www.parse.com/docs/rest
You can also moderate content manually through the data browser.
As far as scalability goes, our team has a lot of experience designing web-scale products. We're designing Parse from the ground up to scale. If anyone has an application that they're concerned how Parse can handle the load, we're glad to chat about it - just drop us a line at [email protected].
[+] [-] maxklein|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lclarkmichalek|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pekk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scottschulthess|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stonemetal|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nemisis7654|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lacker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] janj|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alduler|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henrikschroder|14 years ago|reply
We have a similar product where we provide a backend for game developers, and there are quite a few of them making quite a lot of money on it. But without us, those single developers or small teams simply wouldn't be able to pull off the games that they do, because they don't have the knowledge or resources to make the backend systems we offer.
If you can afford to make your own backend systems, you're not the target for Parse, or us.
(Oh, and it's not like AWS has a 100% stellar track record either. :-) )
[+] [-] catshirt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thibaut_barrere|14 years ago|reply
It provides a good bunch of interesting features and skeleton of apps for Android and iOS.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] angli|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|14 years ago|reply
They support data store functions, push notifications with some nice options, user management, and user auth and security.
[+] [-] suhail|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tikhon|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benologist|14 years ago|reply