Backend as a service (BaaS) or old school SQL server for Mobile APP Remote Database

Question

I'm looking forward to create a mobile app with a remote database. I've already tried SQL server and PARSE. I haven't really used these that long to know any significant difference since I used them for experimentation. I see a lot of advertisements on BaaS and surely it's faster to develop on. I'd like to ask if there's really a very big difference in the long term when using SQL server or using something like PARSE. And one last thing, are there any things that one has and the other doesn't or what can or cannot do? Thank you very much.

Answer 1

Baas offers you a complete box of tools and you do not have to bother with renting a server, adminstrating it and fighting with scalability. You can just focus on developing an app and design you backend without touching the keyboard (if you want).

A great alternative to parse or others the german backend as a service provider apiOmat; they offer a lot of features and pretty cool generated SDKs. And, in contrast to many others, data is not hosted by NSA but in germany.

Answer 2

I think only difference between a SQL Server and something like Parse is one is a relational database and the other runs on non-relational databases like MongoDB. BaaS offers you a ton of other features like Authentication, Custom Code and more which speeds up your development by a huge factor and does-not have you to write your own backend server.

One of the good players in the market, I think is Parse (Gives you all the features of MongoDB) / Kinvey (they're expensive and for an enterprise) / CloudBoost.io (Gives you features of MongoDB + Search + Real-time notifications). It depends on your requirements which one to pick.