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Backlift (YC W12) Launches A Back-End Service For Front-End Developers

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Re: Backlift (YC W12) Launches A Back-End Service For Front-End Developers

#2

Post by eranation »

Was playing with Backlift not too long ago (They have nice Backbone [1] and AngularJS [2] tutorials using their backend) and it looks promising, but I haven't got the chance to really do a comparison with Firebase (isn't it also a YC company?)

What are the differences between Backlift and Firebase (or Parse)? What are the value add features? What things are done differently / better?

[1] http://gun.io/blog/Building-Backbone.js-apps-with-Backlift-V...

[2] https://blog.backlift.com/entry/angular-tut1

Re: Backlift (YC W12) Launches A Back-End Service For Front-End Developers

#5

Post by swalkergibson »

hkarthik wrote: post #4

Having been primarily a backend developer for most of my career, I generally view these services with suspicion. But the rate of new entries into this space makes me wonder if one day I'll be considered a luddite for thinking this way.

I have had the same reaction. I am not sure what customer pain these services are addressing. Even if it made prototyping and MVP developing vastly easier, what happens if the product starts to take off? The lock-in seems dramatic, but I could be off-base.

Re: Backlift (YC W12) Launches A Back-End Service For Front-End Developers

#7

Post by mattyfo »

swalkergibson wrote: post #5
hkarthik wrote: post #4

Having been primarily a backend developer for most of my career, I generally view these services with suspicion. But the rate of new entries into this space makes me wonder if one day I'll be considered a luddite for thinking this way.

I have had the same reaction. I am not sure what customer pain these services are addressing. Even if it made prototyping and MVP developing vastly easier, what happens if the product starts to take off? The lock-in seems dramatic, but I could be off-base.

As a UX Designer and front-end guy a lot of the appeal is being able to build something functional without a lot of help.

You are correct about the taking off part. If any of my ideas were to take off then I would need to swap out one of these services for an actual back-end.

Re: Backlift (YC W12) Launches A Back-End Service For Front-End Developers

#9

Post by colevscode »

Kiro wrote: post #6

How do they solve authentication?

Backlift has an auth api that it uses to establish a user session. As users create and modify data during their session, backlift checks to ensure that the user has appropriate permissions. More data is available here: http://backlift.github.io/docs/authorization.html#authorizat...

Re: Backlift (YC W12) Launches A Back-End Service For Front-End Developers

#10

Post by safwanc »

colevscode wrote: post #3

Hi if you're having trouble creating projects, we apologize. We recently moved to a build process that pulls packages directly from Github, and unfortunately that code is acting up. We're working on it.

Thanks for the update. I ran into "unexpected error" when trying to create a project but they ended up appearing when I refreshed the page. Then somehow I landed on: https://test-lozige.backliftapp.com/
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