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Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

instantdb.com

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Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#41

Post by stopachka »

zbiggistardust wrote: post #39

What's the difference between Instant and Convex?

I would say:

We both offer a real-time queries out of the box. I am not 100% sure, I but think Convex also set up a multi-tenant database; so they can offer a good number of free projects well.

The way I would differentiate Instant:

With Convex you write your queries as Javascript functions. This means you have to do joins for example imperatively. With Instant, you can write queries declaratively.

As of today Convex doesn't work offline, and you have to write optimistic updates manually. Instant can run offline and comes with optimistic updates out of the box.

Both Convex and Instant support files out of the box. But with Instant you can write CASCADE delete rules, and you also get other services, like presence and streams.

Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#42

Post by taoh »

stopachka wrote: post #41
zbiggistardust wrote: post #39

What's the difference between Instant and Convex?

I would say: We both offer a real-time queries out of the box. I am not 100% sure, I but think Convex also set up a multi-tenant database; so they can offer a good number of free projects well. The way I would differentiate Instant: With Convex you write your queries as Javascript functions. This means you have to do joins for example imperatively. With Instant, you can write queries declaratively. As of today Convex…

Congratulations on your launch! 4 years of work is certainly remarkable perseverance.

The sync engine feature looks very interesting to me. There have been quite a few products available on the market today, but none has achieved a dominant share yet. So if this is your main strength, I'd like to see more demos built local first.

Curious if you considered shipping the engine itself as a standalone infra piece.

Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#45

Post by calvinmorrison »

storus wrote: post #28

An honest question - why would we need any frameworks at all for vibe coded apps? I can just tell the coding agent to use pure HTML5/Vanilla JS/CSS on the frontend and pure whatever on the backend and it would do it. No need for hundreds/thousands dependencies. For deployment I can ask the coding agent to do the same.

same reasons human do. context and abstraction.

Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#46

Post by IncreasePosts »

storus wrote: post #28

An honest question - why would we need any frameworks at all for vibe coded apps? I can just tell the coding agent to use pure HTML5/Vanilla JS/CSS on the frontend and pure whatever on the backend and it would do it. No need for hundreds/thousands dependencies. For deployment I can ask the coding agent to do the same.

You don't necessarily, but each token costs money for the AI to spit out. And probably more money when that output is used as input later. Delegating to a library makes sense financially.

Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#47

Post by nezaj »

nl wrote: post #43

What does "X Team Members per app" mean? Is this the number of users you can have registered or does "Team Member" have special meaning?

You can think of this as the number of devs. So if you're working on an app as a team you all can use the dashboard and CLI tools to manage the app.

No limit on number of end users for what you build

Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#49

Post by yoavshai »

zbiggistardust wrote: post #39

What's the difference between Instant and Convex?

For me (and please correct me if I'm wrong, Instant team) the largest difference and a major source of frustration in trying Instant is that you don't have a backend. You get a real-time database with RLS and a sync engine. You don't get to run business logic. You don't get to write queries by name and gain the ability to migrate the schema as long as the query shapes match.

Re: Instant 1.0, a backend for AI-coded apps

#50

Post by stopachka »

owenthejumper wrote: post #40

This is basically a fancy Pocketbase / Supabase?

> Supabase

We are similar to supabase in the sense that we support a relational database. We're different in that with us, you get real-time queries, offline mode, and optimistic updates out of the box.

> Pocketbase

I am not too familiar with Pocketbase.

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