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Ask HN: To BaaS or not to BaaS

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Ask HN: To BaaS or not to BaaS

#1

Post by anish_t »

We are a startup, working on ... well ... another instant messaging and sharing app!! The goal is of course to reach millions of users.

From a time to launch perspective we are wondering if it is at all a good idea to use BaaS services like parse/StacKMob/PubNub. While we are aware of most of the pros and cons of using a BaaS, our main worries with BaaS are high costs at a later stage when users multiply, vendor lock-in. Some things we would love some experienced hackers to throw light on are:

- Any idea on costs of BaaS once one moves into the enterprise usage range with millions of API calls per day

- can one launch with a BaaS backend, and then as the app is gaining traction, build out and switch to a custom solution? is this practically feasible?

- if above (switch to custom solution) is feasible then any specific advice on what one must keep in mind while architecting the app, and any recommendations on a BaaS provider that is easier to switch over from

- any other insight if you think this is a complete no no

cheers Ani

Re: Ask HN: To BaaS or not to BaaS

#5

Post by anish_t »

pearjuice wrote: post #2

I have read your entire post and still don't know what BaaS stands for. B.. as a service?

as Sumang already pointed out BaaS is "backend as a service". BaaS vendors provide the most common backend features for web and mobile apps such as user signup, social integration, notifications, storage etc. in a managed cloud. They have easy to use APIs for each platform thus making it very easy to launch quickly and across multiple platforms (ios, android, web...)

Re: Ask HN: To BaaS or not to BaaS

#6

Post by samsheen »

I believe that the question you should be asking yourself is this - Can BaaS (or any other service) help me get to the market right now at the lowest cost possible.

For any such commodity as a service, the initial costs to you will be lower than if you had to build the service yourself. However, over time the costs will go up. The benefit to you will always be ease of development and having the time to focus on building the core features that will make your startup feasible. Most startups fail before they reach a point where they need to worry about rising costs and that's a good problem to have. (when you have it you can mostly pay someone to fix them for you)

My recommendations (having never used any of the above mentioned BaaS providers, do take these with a pinch of salt)

1. Look at how easy it is to get your data back if you need to host the services yourself or change providers. Does the provider have any processes for the same? Speak to the sales (and support) people about this before you decide on a provider. Look for the provider that is transparent about this.

2. Don't worry about what the cost will be when you reach a million users. Your time right now is spent wisely validating your idea. Cross that bridge when you come to it.

3. The only "complete no no" scenario I can think of would be if you were hosting sensitive information (credit card etc)

Hope this helps

Re: Ask HN: To BaaS or not to BaaS

#8

Post by 6thSigma »

Don't even worry about it, to be honest. If you are lucky enough to be in that situation, it would be a very good problem to have.

You would face technical scaling issues no matter what you were using. If the BaaS is your bottleneck you could fix it then.

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