Show HN: Serverpod – The Missing Server for Flutter

[rlonn]

We just released Serverpod 1.0

[vlidholt]

Hi! I'm Viktor, the lead developer of Serverpod. Feel free to ask me any questions, and I'll try to answer.

You can also watch the Serverpod 1.0 release keynote on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/QN6juNWW3js

[jgoyvaerts]

I've applied twice to one of your open positions but never even received a reply, how come?

[turbobooster]

I dont understand why or when I would need this? What is an app server is the first place?

[jmnicolas]

AFAIK most of the Dart server projects have been abandoned so I'm weary to try new ones. Let's hope this one will stick, it looks cool.

[vlidholt]

Thank you! The previous Dart backend attempts were predating Flutter, so the conditions are very different now. Serverpod is also a funded company, and not a side or hobby project like earlier Dart servers.

[mhoad]

The original creator of Flutter actually left Google rather recently and is in the process of building a Dart server project as his next thing. It’s not even at alpha stage yet however it’s VERY new https://github.com/shorebirdtech

[creshal]

Not entirely sure what's "revolutionary" about the ORM, although the lack of joins, M2M relationships, migrations, and other basic features certainly is revolting.

The entire API/serialization/… part also seems extremely primitive, what with it being only capable of either exposing data or not, with no easy way to filter or transform data.

Let's hope it survives long enough to be competitive with mature frameworks.

[vlidholt]

It's revolutionary to Dart in the sense that you can use strict typing when communicating with the database. This is very helpful as you get much more help with autocomplete and other language tooling.

Granted there are still lots of gaps to fill, but we are surely getting there. The biggest new feature we are working on is database migrations.

[rlonn]

This is a project I've been involved with lately, that I think is very exciting if you're into Flutter or Dart development. We just released version 1.0 so Serverpod is (hopefully) ready for production now!

[danpalmer]

What about this is Flutter specific, other than being a Dart web framework?

[vlidholt]

It's not so much a web framework as it is an app backend. So it's not great (yet) at rendering web pages, but it is great for doing remote method calls and streaming data. That being said, Serverpod is not limited to Flutter, you can use it for any Dart app.

[ushakov]

Gives me the same vibe as Vapor for Swift. I'm happy that this technology exists, but doesn't make sense for me to use, unless I'm also a Flutter or Apple developer

[vlidholt]

Yes, it is obviously the most useful if you are a Flutter developer. According to Google, over 20% of new apps on Google Play are now made with Flutter so it's a large segment in itself.

[elforce002]

Not even that. I'd use Nodejs, Go, C#, etc... which are battle tested, have strong communities, and plenty of support.

[Alifatisk]

Very cool, I’ll give it a spin in my next project

[vlidholt]

Thank you! :)

[krimpenrik]

How do this compares to the abandoned aquaduct dart backend?

[vlidholt]

Aqueduct was built before Flutter, it is more like a regular web server written in Dart. Serverpod is build specifically with Flutter developers in mind, making it very easy to build APIs. Serverpod will actually analyze your server code and automatically generate your client side APIs. You call a method on the server just like you would call a local method in your app.