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Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

kinto.readthedocs.org

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Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#21

Post by chuinard »

miles_matthias wrote: post #16

I'm a big fan of services like Parse & Firebase so it's cool to see something open source and independent get released. I've never made the jump to use Parse or Firebase in production though because inevitably I have to write some custom server code to do some integration. For example - payments with Stripe. Charges should only occur on your server (not on the client) but I've yet to see anyone allow you to configure…

I've done exactly that - integrated Stripe with our Firebase-backed app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twansoftwa...). My method was to use App Engine as the callback component to handle Stripe webhooks.

I also do have custom server code, which was a little bit tough to get going, but it's great having a dedicated Linux box as well.

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#22

Post by javawizard »

cmsthrowit wrote: post #15
d0m wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many industries (I.e. healthcare with HIPAA) you can't save your data in Firebase/Parse.

Parse is HIPAA certified.

According to whom? A quick Google search turns up a number of results to the contrary.

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#23

Post by subpixel »

miles_matthias wrote: post #16

I'm a big fan of services like Parse & Firebase so it's cool to see something open source and independent get released. I've never made the jump to use Parse or Firebase in production though because inevitably I have to write some custom server code to do some integration. For example - payments with Stripe. Charges should only occur on your server (not on the client) but I've yet to see anyone allow you to configure…

Basically, you need a service running on a separate server to implement these sorts of integrations. If Firebase is a long-term part of your stack, I agree that sounds unappealing, b/c the reason you're paying Firebase is so you don't need to wrangle a server.

You may think differently if you're using Firebase as the fastest way to get an MVP up and running (that happens to be my use case)

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#24

Post by doczoidberg »

miles_matthias wrote: post #16

I'm a big fan of services like Parse & Firebase so it's cool to see something open source and independent get released. I've never made the jump to use Parse or Firebase in production though because inevitably I have to write some custom server code to do some integration. For example - payments with Stripe. Charges should only occur on your server (not on the client) but I've yet to see anyone allow you to configure…

Of course you can use firebase also in combination with server side code. It is no reason not to use firebase because you use server side code. I use firebase and SQL at the same time. It works quite good if you know what you do.

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#25

Post by daleharvey »

jondubois wrote: post #20

I'm not a big fan of offline storage for web apps. Any serious app will quickly exceed the localStorage limit which is only 5mb. I would also question the decision to use HTTP for this purpose instead of WebSockets.

IndexedDB is not limited to 5MB, its essentially unlimited in Chrome and Firefox. It can be tricky with mobile browsers but they often also have the option of using an unlimited web app wrapper (http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/offline/quota-researc...)

And as for WebSockets, HTTP is easier to debug and experiment with, in my experience the performance difference for the typical use cases is negligible and when needed it is trivial to wrap the communication in a socket.

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#26

Post by mansilladev »

rbranson wrote: post #8

Isn't one of the main benefits of something like Firebase or Parse that you don't have to run it? It's nice that Kinto packages the stack together and provides plug-and-play APIs, but there's quite a bit of expertise and overhead operating a backend stack in production.

My thoughts exactly. Kinto is a database with an API that you have to configure, deploy, manage and scale. It's not really an alternative to Parse/Firebase, as it is an alternative to Mongo.

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#27

Post by jondubois »

cmsthrowit wrote: post #15
d0m wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many industries (I.e. healthcare with HIPAA) you can't save your data in Firebase/Parse.

Parse is HIPAA certified.

Regardless of this (assuming this is even true), I can't imagine that a finance company would want to store their data inside something like Firebase - The risk of data theft is too high and the value of the data is also too high.

When you store everything in a big centralized system, the risk of that data being compromised increases greatly. Right now, the reason why no one is hacking Firebase is because the data which is being stored in there is low-value.

If banks and hospitals started storing data in Firebase, you can be sure that it would attract the attention of hackers and you can be sure that they would find an exploit eventually.

You can't possibly place all of the world's high-value data inside one or two systems. Every single change made to the codebase is a potential security vulnerability.

Also, I imagine that employees of Firebase have access to all your data - What if one of them decided to share your data with a competitor. Humans are corruptable - This is too much power to put in the hands of so few people.

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#28

Post by doczoidberg »

mansilladev wrote: post #26
rbranson wrote: post #8

Isn't one of the main benefits of something like Firebase or Parse that you don't have to run it? It's nice that Kinto packages the stack together and provides plug-and-play APIs, but there's quite a bit of expertise and overhead operating a backend stack in production.

My thoughts exactly. Kinto is a database with an API that you have to configure, deploy, manage and scale. It's not really an alternative to Parse/Firebase, as it is an alternative to Mongo.

main feature of firebase for me are the "realtime" updates

Re: Kinto – open-source alternative to Firebase and Parse

#29

Post by gfosco »

cmsthrowit wrote: post #15
d0m wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many industries (I.e. healthcare with HIPAA) you can't save your data in Firebase/Parse.

Parse is HIPAA certified.

No, it is not. No idea where you got this notion, but I've been answering this question for almost 3 years.
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