Show HN: Generate REST APIs for Existing Applications

We totally understand the hesitation there. We're launching with the hosted direct-connection form, but we have tons of plans to specifically address this concern.

First, we're actively working on a database agent (like chart.io using reverse-SSH tunneling) for increased security and control.

Second, we have longer term plans to offer this platform as an appliance, so everything stays within your infrastructure. That's obviously a much larger project.

In the mean time, we have the advantage of being able to make constant improvements to your API while being hosted.

I can see the pros and cons of the idea.

Pros

1. Expose your data through an API without writing much (any ?) code.

2. Time saving.

3. Since the API itself is fed by the framework, the opportunity for bugs is limited.

4. I can think of some people / businesses that would pay for this service.

Cons

1. I cant quite get why a service like this would limit its requests / month [1]. My take on it was that you are selling the transformation of the data into a service - as a service. I guess the calls / month is to also benefit from the value that your service adds to the data ? Number of calls made might not directly translate to value.

2. You are limited to relational models.

3. There are tricky conditional requests / data munging / orchestration etc that REST services are expected to take care of sometimes. It can quickly become messy if a client wants this. Is there a translation / conversion layer that can be inserted between the API and its caller ?

Some feedback...

1. Is there some way a developer can try this out before pitching it to a product manager or a higher-up ? There seems to be no direct way to do that. All plans under pricing are tied to money so some folks might be averse to signing up. Most devs just want to download and hack something out to show someone what a product is capable of. The dev can be your marketer within a company.

2. The layout of your site is neat. The call to actions are very specific and targeted.

3. I think your product has the potential to be awesome. Good luck.

[1] - http://www.emergentone.com/pricing/

As someone who works on a deep and far away application I would have a hard to seeing how connecting to our datasource (which has been abstracted to hell by ORM layers) would be a better option for developing a rest interface than using existing infrastructure. That being said, I like the path they are taking and think it's a valid approach... just not sure how many people actually need it.

For a n00b like me this looks interesting. Wouldn't mind taking a test drive to see if it's something that could work long term. I agree with @josegonzalez. Seems like a leap of faith and you lose a bit of control. However, if in the long run it's a stable environment and everything works as promised could be a solid solution.