What is Back4App and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to Back4App
- Heroku
Heroku is a cloud application platform – a new way of building and deploying web apps. Heroku lets app developers spend 100% of their time on their application code, not managing servers, deployment, ongoing operations, or scaling. ...
- Firebase
Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds. ...
- Parse
With Parse, you can add a scalable and powerful backend in minutes and launch a full-featured app in record time without ever worrying about server management. We offer push notifications, social integration, data storage, and the ability to add rich custom logic to your app’s backend with Cloud Code. ...
- Backendless
It is a development and runtime platform which simplifies and shortens mobile application development process. The platform removes the need to develop backend functionality by providing reusable server-side services via APIs. The APIs are packaged into native libraries available for all major client-side environments - Andoid, iOS, JavaScript, .NET, ActionScript and REST. The default backend logic can be modified with custom server-side code. The platform is available as an online service and a downloadable Enterprise product which can be deployed in any environment. ...
- Kinvey
Kinvey makes it ridiculously easy for developers to setup, use and operate a cloud backend for their mobile apps. They don't have to worry about connecting to various cloud services, setting up servers for their backend, or maintaining and scaling them. ...
- Parse-Server
A Parse.com API compatible router package for Express. Read the announcement blog post here: http://blog.parse.com/announcements/introducing-parse-server-and-the-database-migration-tool/. Read the migration guide here: https://parse.com/docs/server/guide#migrating ...
- Socket.IO
It enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed. ...
- Pusher
Pusher is the category leader in delightful APIs for app developers building communication and collaboration features. ...
Back4App alternatives & related posts
Heroku
- Easy deployment705
- Free for side projects459
- Huge time-saver374
- Simple scaling348
- Low devops skills required261
- Easy setup190
- Add-ons for almost everything174
- Beginner friendly153
- Better for startups150
- Low learning curve133
- Postgres hosting48
- Easy to add collaborators41
- Faster development30
- Awesome documentation24
- Simple rollback19
- Focus on product, not deployment19
- Natural companion for rails development15
- Easy integration15
- Great customer support12
- GitHub integration8
- Painless & well documented6
- No-ops6
- I love that they make it free to launch a side project4
- Free4
- Great UI3
- Just works3
- PostgreSQL forking and following2
- MySQL extension2
- Security1
- Able to host stuff good like Discord Bot1
- Sec0
- Super expensive26
- Not a whole lot of flexibility8
- Storage6
- No usable MySQL option6
- Low performance on free tier4
- 24/7 support is $1,000 per month1
related Heroku posts











StackShare Feed is built entirely with React, Glamorous, and Apollo. One of our objectives with the public launch of the Feed was to enable a Server-side rendered (SSR) experience for our organic search traffic. When you visit the StackShare Feed, and you aren't logged in, you are delivered the Trending feed experience. We use an in-house Node.js rendering microservice to generate this HTML. This microservice needs to run and serve requests independent of our Rails web app. Up until recently, we had a mono-repo with our Rails and React code living happily together and all served from the same web process. In order to deploy our SSR app into a Heroku environment, we needed to split out our front-end application into a separate repo in GitHub. The driving factor in this decision was mostly due to limitations imposed by Heroku specifically with how processes can't communicate with each other. A new SSR app was created in Heroku and linked directly to the frontend repo so it stays in-sync with changes.
Related to this, we need a way to "deploy" our frontend changes to various server environments without building & releasing the entire Ruby application. We built a hybrid Amazon S3 Amazon CloudFront solution to host our Webpack bundles. A new CircleCI script builds the bundles and uploads them to S3. The final step in our rollout is to update some keys in Redis so our Rails app knows which bundles to serve. The result of these efforts were significant. Our frontend team now moves independently of our backend team, our build & release process takes only a few minutes, we are now using an edge CDN to serve JS assets, and we have pre-rendered React pages!
#StackDecisionsLaunch #SSR #Microservices #FrontEndRepoSplit
























Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:
- GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
- Respectively Git as revision control system
- SourceTree as Git GUI
- Visual Studio Code as IDE
- CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
- Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
- SonarQube as quality gate
- Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
- VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
- Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
- Heroku for deploying in test environments
- nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
- SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
- Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
- PostgreSQL as preferred database system
- Redis as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)
The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:
- Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
- Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
- Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
- Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
- Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
- Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
- Realtime backend made easy369
- Fast and responsive268
- Easy setup240
- Real-time213
- JSON188
- Free133
- Backed by google126
- Angular adaptor82
- Reliable67
- Great customer support35
- Great documentation31
- Real-time synchronization25
- Mobile friendly21
- Rapid prototyping18
- Great security14
- Automatic scaling12
- Freakingly awesome11
- Angularfire is an amazing addition!8
- Super fast development8
- Chat8
- Firebase hosting6
- Built in user auth/oauth6
- Awesome next-gen backend6
- Ios adaptor6
- Very easy to use4
- Speed of light4
- Great3
- It's made development super fast3
- Brilliant for startups3
- .net2
- JS Offline and Sync suport2
- Low battery consumption2
- Push notification2
- Free hosting2
- Cloud functions2
- The concurrent updates create a great experience2
- I can quickly create static web apps with no backend2
- Great all-round functionality2
- Free authentication solution2
- CDN & cache out of the box1
- Google's support1
- Simple and easy1
- Faster workflow1
- Free SSL1
- Easy Reactjs integration1
- Easy to use1
- Large1
- Serverless1
- Good Free Limits1
- Can become expensive31
- No open source, you depend on external company16
- Scalability is not infinite15
- Not Flexible Enough9
- Cant filter queries7
- Very unstable server3
- No Relational Data3
- Too many errors2
- No offline sync2
related Firebase posts
Hi Otensia! I'd definitely recommend using the skills you've already got and building with JavaScript is a smart way to go these days. Most platform services have JavaScript/Node SDKs or NPM packages, many serverless platforms support Node in case you need to write any backend logic, and JavaScript is incredibly popular - meaning it will be easy to hire for, should you ever need to.
My advice would be "don't reinvent the wheel". If you already have a skill set that will work well to solve the problem at hand, and you don't need it for any other projects, don't spend the time jumping into a new language. If you're looking for an excuse to learn something new, it would be better to invest that time in learning a new platform/tool that compliments your knowledge of JavaScript. For this project, I might recommend using Netlify, Vercel, or Google Firebase to quickly and easily deploy your web app. If you need to add user authentication, there are great examples out there for Firebase Authentication, Auth0, or even Magic (a newcomer on the Auth scene, but very user friendly). All of these services work very well with a JavaScript-based application.



























This is my stack in Application & Data
JavaScript PHP HTML5 jQuery Redis Amazon EC2 Ubuntu Sass Vue.js Firebase Laravel Lumen Amazon RDS GraphQL MariaDB
My Utilities Tools
Google Analytics Postman Elasticsearch
My Devops Tools
Git GitHub GitLab npm Visual Studio Code Kibana Sentry BrowserStack
My Business Tools
Slack
- Easy setup118
- Free hosting77
- Well-documented62
- Cheap51
- Use push notifications in 3 lines of code47
- Fast41
- Cloud code39
- Good for prototypes32
- Cloud modules31
- Backed by facebook27
- Parse Push7
- Cross Platform7
- Parse Analytics6
- Multiplatform6
- Parse Core6
- Quick chat and profile capabilities5
- Free Tier5
- Cloud Based5
- Nice security concept4
- Local Datastore3
- Backbone Models3
- Free3
- Geopoints3
- Backend as a service3
- About to Die2
- Anonymous Users2
- Easy to use2
related Parse posts
related Backendless posts
- Easy setup5
- Excellent documentation2
- Great free tier for testing prototypes2
- MongoDB2
- Will be discontinued sometime in 20231
- Great customer support1
- Base plan starts at $2,500 / year1
related Kinvey posts
- Open Source13
- Well documented7
- Easy setup, easy api, Fast,more platforms,realtime4
- No vendor lock-in3
- JSON2
- Backed by People2
- Friendly contributor community1
- No guarantee (comes as is)1
related Parse-Server posts
- Real-time217
- Event-based communication141
- Node.js141
- WebSockets102
- Open source101
- Binary streaming26
- No internet dependency21
- Large community10
- Fallback to polling if WebSockets not supported9
- Push notification6
- Ease of access and setup5
- Bad documentation11
- Githubs that complement it are mostly deprecated4
- Doesn't work on React Native3
- Small community2
- Websocket Errors2
related Socket.IO posts
I use Socket.IO because the application has 2 frontend clients, which need to communicate in real-time. The backend-server handles the communication between these two clients via websockets. Socket.io is very easy to set up in Node.js and ExpressJS.
In the research project, the 1st client shows panoramic videos in a so called cave system (it is the VR setup of our research lab, which consists of three big screens, which are specially arranged, so the user experience the videos more immersive), the 2nd client controls the videos/locations of the 1st client.
We are starting to work on a web-based platform aiming to connect artists (clients) and professional freelancers (service providers). In-app, timeline-based, real-time communication between users (& storing it), file transfers, and push notifications are essential core features. We are considering using Node.js, ExpressJS, React, MongoDB stack with Socket.IO & Apollo, or maybe using Real-Time Database and functionalities of Firebase.
- An easy way to give customers realtime features55
- Websockets40
- Simple34
- Easy to get started with27
- Free plan25
- Heroku Add-on12
- Easy and fast to configure and to understand11
- JSON9
- Azure Add-on6
- Happy6
- Support5
- Push notification4
- Costly9
related Pusher posts
Which messaging service (Pusher vs. PubNub vs. Google Cloud Pub/Sub) to use for IoT?
Recently we finished long research on chat tool for our students and mentors. In the end we picked Mattermost Team Edition as the cheapest and most feature complete option. We did consider building everything from scratch and use something like Pusher or Twilio on a backend, but then we would have to implement all the desktop and mobile clients and all the features oursevles. Mattermost gave us flexible API, lots of built in or easy to install integrations and future-proof feature set. We are still integrating it with our main platform but so far the team, existing mentors and students are very happy.