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Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

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Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#92
post #91

How is this different from Strapi? How can a query for data using logical operators? Example: GET all log entries from 1/1/2022 until 1/1/2023 AND created by Joe OR Mary

Hi there, Mike CEO of Fastgen here, jumping in for Costa.

Strapi is a headless CMS and focuses on Content Delivery to a Frontend. Fastgen is a lowcode backend builder and is putting a stronger focus on application logic, triggering workflows, and moving data around between different sources. So there can be a slight overlap but it is not very large.

If you want to query data from the connected database in Fastgen, you can do so by using our SQL action block. For your example you could use something like the following statement:

SELECT * FROM log_entries WHERE (created_by = 'Joe' OR created_by = 'Mary') AND created_at >= '2022-01-01' AND created_at The SQL Action would then return the requested data and you can reuse it in any of the following actions, send it to your frontend, a slack channel, a different api or any destination you want. You can also trigger additional logic or workflows based on the results.

Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#93
post #43

Pricing is crazy. team plan with 2 million actions ($300 is already expensive for this) + $29k? This is not realistic in any way.

As a point of comparison - cloudflare workers costs 0.30$ for the same (2 million) requests, plus a 5$ monthly fee. If my math is correct, in their eyes the visual aspect is worth 100,000x as much? edit: it's actually 200,000x, the cloudflare base fee includes 1 million requests. Is it possible that they added an extra couple zeros?

I also was surprised about the pricing. But it's getting a bit better if you check the FAQ. They basically dont charge for "basic" actions and 0.25 per db action. So if you just do some read and write to the db, its basically 0.25 per request.

Dont know why they hide it that crazy (usually its the other way around)...

Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#94
post #43

Pricing is crazy. team plan with 2 million actions ($300 is already expensive for this) + $29k? This is not realistic in any way.

2 million actions. Also known as what any modern CPU can run in less than a second. Or probably 1$ on AWS Lambda if counting API Gateway calls.

It’s always been one of my pet peeves when it comes to low / no code solutions like Zapier.

But this is egregious.

Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#95
My question is: who is the intended customer?

As a software dev who is confident with coding I would not use this because I don't want to lock myself to a platform (vendor lock-in). Someone who is a rookie might use it but it seems that it requires more than basic knowleadge (e.g. REST, SQL, auth, etc).

Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#96
I did something similar back in the 90s. Basically implemented full state machine engine including nesting, graphical editor and debugger with the ability to hook custom actions. It was marketed as business process server. It was a product that was used to integrate various business processes in multiple orgs in telecom industry.

Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#98
post #90

Body validation is too simple, for example I want the be able to configure the min max from the DB or interdependent validation i.e. if you pass in and Id and a search string I want to return an error. The DB Query editor is too simple requiring the user to manually create sql queries rather than visually build them. The DB editor doesn't allow foreign keys and complex DB relationships to be defined visually as well.…

wow. Seriously you're probably expecting too much from a low-code solution! No platform is going to have everything you can imagine in it.

Low code is hard, not only do you have to deal with insane technical challenges but also need to make sure you’re building the right level of abstraction. I wonder if it’s better to focus on very specific niche applications instead of being a “backend” builder.

Re: Launch HN: Fastgen (YC W23) – Visual Low-Code Backend Builder

#99
post #90

Body validation is too simple, for example I want the be able to configure the min max from the DB or interdependent validation i.e. if you pass in and Id and a search string I want to return an error. The DB Query editor is too simple requiring the user to manually create sql queries rather than visually build them. The DB editor doesn't allow foreign keys and complex DB relationships to be defined visually as well.…

wow. Seriously you're probably expecting too much from a low-code solution! No platform is going to have everything you can imagine in it.

I worked at low code pioneer Mendix previously. 10 years ago we had all of these things. For enterprise grade low code platform you definitely need all of these features and a lot more.
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