What is a mBaaS Mobile Backend as a Service?
What is a mBaaS Mobile Backend as a Service?
mBaaS — Mobile Backend as a Service Advantages
Every business can benefit from having an app. But the process of developing an app can seem intimidating. It doesn’t have to be that way.
A mBaaS, or Mobile Backend as a Service provider can offer the infrastructure you need to run your application and take your business to the next level. In the modern business environment apps are almost essential to doing business. That means finding a way to execute your app in the most efficient manner possible puts you a step ahead of the competition.
This article will help you understand what a Mobile Backend as a service (mBaaS) is and how it creates value. Finally, you’ll get the chance to review some of the most prominent mBaaS providers to help you understand which option is best for you.
What is mBaaS? Understanding a Mobile Backend as a Service
Mobile Backend as a Service, or mBaaS, is a development model that’s based on cloud technology. It allows you to outsource all of the behind-the-scenes components of your web or mobile application so that you just need to write and maintain the front end. That can save you and your business a tremendous amount of time and money when you’re developing an app.
The way it works is simple. mBaaS providers offer pre-written software for the types of activities that take place on the server side of things. Some examples of these functions include user authentication, cloud storage and hosting, database management, remote updates, and even push notifications for mobile apps. The only thing you’re responsible for is the user interface and any client-side logic your app needs to function. The result is a dramatically scaled down project to get your app up and running.
There are lots of different options when it comes to mBaaS providers. It’s important to carefully weigh what each provider offers and what the drawbacks are so you can make an informed choice for your business.
The nice thing is that lots of options means that it’s likely that you can find the perfect solution for your app backend development needs. The problem is that you’ll have to sort through the different options to figure out what works best. This article covers some of the most popular mBaaS providers on the market today. But before you pick out a provider, it’s important to understand exactly how BaaS creates value for you and your company.
How mBaaS Creates Value
Why to you need a mBaaS? There’s lots of ways that mBaaS can create value for your business. It’s a powerful service that frees up resources so you can do what you do best. However, it’s always helpful to get a more specific idea on how something can create value for your business. That’s what this section covers. The main ways that mBaaS Creates value are:
- Save time
- Save money on skilled labor
- Focus on core business operations
- Expanded service options
The next sections cover each of these points in detail, followed by an explanation on how these factors mean that mBaaS offers SMBs a great value.
Save Time
One of the most important things that mBaaS does for your business is to save you time. Using a mBaaS means that you’ll have all of the infrastructure you need to run your app without the hassle of setting up that infrastructure.
The result is that your app will be up and running faster. That means you’ve got a better ability to hit target windows, take advantage of seasonal trends, boost engagement and sales, or make sure your game is running properly.
Save on Skilled Labor
Another way that mBaaS creates value for companies is that it allows you to save money on skilled labor. Some businesses don’t have any development team. Others may have a small IT staff that has multiple responsibilities. As a result, developing your app’s backend from scratch means expending tremendous resources and capital.
However, when you use mBaaS, you don’t need this type of skilled labor. That means you save money on contractors and consultants. It also means that your IT team can focus on developing and improving the front end of your app. Finally, for some SMBs, it can mean saving money on hiring one or more full-time employees. That means higher profits and less stress for you.
Focus on Core Business Operations
Unless your core business is developing backend operations for apps, then there’s a good chance that creating your app will distract you from your core business operations. Backend as a service means that you can focus on what you do best while someone else handles the highly specialized work of your backend infrastructure.
The result is that you’ll be able to sell more widgets, bill more hours, or focus on making sure your latest game is awesome. Focusing on your core business operations ensure you consistently deliver the highest-quality product possible and lets you focus on finding ways to grow your business. Allowing yourself to be distracted by operations that aren’t core to your business can result in lost quality, missed opportunities for growth, and other problems.
Expanded Service Options
One of the best things that you get when you use BaaS for your app is that there are various service options. That means you can pay for and get exactly the help you need. The Best mBaaS providers offer free mBaaS for things like development and prototyping. They’ll also offer expanded service options that allow your business to get further support.
These expanded service options let you control your costs relative to your needs. It also simplifies your costs by rolling everything into one easy-to-understand invoice. That includes things like data transfer, infrastructure costs, security, backups, and customer support. As a result, you don’t have to shop around and deal with these potential barriers to your success. You just need to focus on your business.
SMB’s Get Great Value
Small and medium businesses get even greater value from mBaaS. That’s because these businesses are the least likely to have the talent base and infrastructure in place to develop the backend of an app. Moreover, SMBs benefit even more from having an app. A branded app on the app store gives your SMB an air of authority and legitimacy. It also greatly expands the ways you can do business, increasing customer engagement and sales while saving valuable resources on backend development.
As a result of all this, mBaaS lets SMBs keep the advantage of being fast to react and flexible, while offering them all of the power that large and enterprise businesses get from having their own app. Getting all of the advantages of your size without the drawbacks of smaller budgets and fewer staff helps take your SMB to the next level.
mBaaS Providers Comparison
There are several options on the market for mBaaS providers. You deserve to have all the information you need to make an informed decision. That’s what this section is for. It will cover some of the most popular mBaaS providers and give you a detailed understanding of each one. Use this information to find the best mBaaS provider for your business needs.
Back4App
Key Info:
- Social Login
- Free Plan Available
- Supports Multiple SDKs
- Easy User Account Management
People are saying a lot of great things about Back4App. They enjoy the way that the online backend makes data management and API creation easy. Additionally, it’s scalable, supports multiple SDKs, social login/user authentication, and easy user account management. Back4app is also one of the few BaaS providers that offers dedicated hosting to ensure your app performs at its best.
One of the things that we like best about Back4App is that they offer a free tier level in their pricing. That means you can prototype and play with different aspects of Back4App and the app you’re developing without incurring additional costs. As a result, it’s a great way to keep budgets from exploding on any app development project.
The other thing about Back4App that’s worth mentioning is that they have an easy-to-use tool that lets you migrate your Parse app to Back4App. This CLI migration tool works for self-hosted apps and Parse hosting providers. The entire process only takes 6 or 7 steps.
Parse
Key Info:
- Open Source since January 2017
- Good User Organization
- Used as BaaS for Apps in Multiple Industries
One of the things that developers liked most about Parse was the extremely fine-grained user organizational capacities it offered. In addition to helping developers with things like permissions and authentication, this data was also useful for marketing. As a result, it created tremendous value for startups and SMBs, allowing them to better understand and adapt to their customer base.
Parse is one of the most popular self-hosted BaaS options. In fact, other BaaS providers offer the ability to directly convert a Parse backend so that your app gets the maintenance and functionality it needs. Back4App is one of the BaaS providers that offer this service. There are also other options.
Kinvey
Key Info:
- Limited Free Tier Access
- Push Notifications
- Lots of Code Snippet Libraries
- Pricey
Kinvey is a mobile app focused mBaaS provider. It allows development for hybrid, web, and IoT apps without any setup. It also uses a cloud-based backend for the apps. As a result, it’s a great example of a BaaS provider, as it lets developers focus on front-end and user experience issues.
Kinvey is best for enterprise-sized operations. It does work with smaller organizations and offers serverless full-stack javascript platform, although the primary focus for Kinvey is on enterprise clients. Apps across industries like healthcare, field services, and insurance use Kinvey as their BaaS provider. A lot of this has to do with the ease of use that Kinvey has with IoT devices, which means that Kinvey is used for lots of hybrid apps.
Kuzzle
Key Info:
- Multiprotocol Support
- Open source with paid offerings
- Costs can add up
Kuzzle is an open-sourced mBaaS released under the Apache 2 license. It comes with a fully documented JavaScript SDK which makes it easy to incorporate into your current app-building projects.
If you want hosting with your mBaaS provider, then you’ll need to be prepared to shell out some cash. The Managed Cloud edition starts at $1,200 per month. This comes with a ton of support options and an on-demand sandbox, but there’s no plan between the free and managed cloud edition for those that need hosting but not all the support included in the costly $1,200 version. Keep in mind that $1,200 is the starting point for these plans, not the ceiling. Depending on your needs, you may find yourself paying even more.
Couchbase
Key Info:
- Decent console
- Simple to use
- Multi cloud to edge NoSQL database
- Documentation
Couchbase is a provider that gets a lot of action from teams that need advanced document stores and similar services. It receives high praise for its connectivity to both Windows and Mobile platforms as well as its scalability. Some of the other features that users enjoy include latency compensation, lower boilerplate code, and the way it introduces SQL-like capabilities in a NoSQL database.
While businesses of all sizes use Couchbase, it has a lot of enterprise and international corporate business clients. It’s especially popular with financial firms, travel firms, and large retail operations. Their most recent version, 6.0, added Analytics with no-ETL through N1QL for analytics based on SQL++. They’ve been good about releasing updates at least every year with improvements.
The final thing that’s worth mentioning for Couchbase is that they’re opaque on their pricing. You need to request a quote from the company, and there aren’t any guidelines on their page for pricing. Instead, they advertise their ROI over five years and their Payback period of 7 months. That can make it tough for startups and SMBs to understand exactly how to get the best value from Couchbase without making some kind of commitment..
How Can mBaaS Help You?
As you can see, mobile backend as a service is a powerful tool that helps businesses of all sizes grow. It doesn’t matter what kind of app your business needs, outsourcing the backend development process will save you a tremendous amount of time and money. It will also let you focus on the things that matter most to your business, like the frontend of the app and your core business operations. If you are or are planning to develop an app then you should contact some BaaS providers to find out how BaaS can help you.
Would you like to know more about mBaaS — Mobile Backend as a Service? If so, please read the article below. It provides a comprehensive overview of the benefits of using a mBaaS service, real-life examples, and how you can cut costs.
Originally published at https://blog.back4app.com/2019/10/18/mbaas on October 18, 2019.