5 ms·

Hi HN! I’m Alex from Parabola (https://parabola.io https://parabola.io). Parabola is a visual programming tool for creating functional data flows that everyone

Hi HN! I’m Alex from Parabola (https://parabola.io https://parabola.io). Parabola is a visual programming tool for creating functional data flows that everyone can use. It’s entirely drag-and-drop, handles data sizes much larger than a traditional spreadsheet, calculates everything live, and can run your flows on a schedule of your choosing. I used to work in strategy consulting, doing data analytics for SMBs and Fortune 500 companies. The amount of time wasted on menial tasks was astounding. Things like cleaning data, generating custom reports, creating human workflows to solve shortcomings in third party tools, etc. Non-technical people have to rely on doing things manually or using fragile spreadsheets that solve only part of their use cases. We don't think everyone should have to learn to code in order to work productively (https://medium.com/parabola-labs/not-everyone-needs-to-learn-how-to-code-32f47ea7a171 https://medium.com/parabola-labs/not-everyone-needs-to-learn...). That’s why we’re building the tools to help people stop wasting so much time on manual processes, and instead focus on their actual core competencies. We’ve made some interesting decisions in the design of Parabola’s visual programming “language”. We’d love to hear what you think and are happy to discuss our thought process in the comments.

zeptomu 8y ago
Hey, nice work. What would you say differentiates this service from say, Zapier?
- alexyaseen 8y ago
  I really like how dbranes described it below: >"drag-and-drop data transformation pipelines that comes with app integrations at both ends" Parabola is very focused on data transformation/manipulation. Our best customers end up with hundreds of steps in their flows, essentially creating full-fledged programs. As part of this focus on data transformation, we primarily operate in a batch-processing fashion. We also perform calculations live while you work on your flow, similar to a spreadsheet or a python notebook. Zapier on the other hand is great at connecting with TONS of tools, and makes integrations between those tools really smooth. It operates best in an event-based paradigm when you don't need to do much transformation/calculation in between connection points. There's probably a small amount of overlap at the edges, but in general it's pretty clear when a use case will be a good fit for a tool like Zapier or when it's a good fit for Parabola.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Greetings! I'll get straight to the point. I've used Node-Red (https://nodered.org https://nodered.org) in building my own IoT network along with automating quite a lot of things. I run my own Node-Red instance locally as well as online. Node-red has 1500 different functionality plugins, including things like "push flow to another node-red installation". Node-red also uses javascript as its frontend and backend. I can share whole code by giving someone the js block - which means that backing up flows is trivial. Sharing is also as easy. So, I looked at your solution. It seems like a prettified version of Node-red with backup, js, and lack of ecosystem. So, what's your buy-in? What're you doing better than a spare VPS running node-red? Not everyone is going to install and maintain a server.... but you're here on HN. I'd say that 95% or higher could get Nodered up and running here.
- jermaustin1 8y ago
  My time is more valuable than running, managing, maintaining, and monitoring a VPS just to save $180/mo. If I've saved 1.5 hours, it's paid for itself, and I've been freed up to be productive on other things, like watching YouTube.
  - pier25 8y ago
    With cloud functions you don’t really need to do any of that
- statictype 8y ago
  I suppose with that logic you don’t even need node red. You could just put your requirements into a .js file. What’s your buy-in? What are you doing with node red that can’t be done with a text editor and npm?
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    That's certainly reducto-ad-absurdum if iv'e ever seen one. They're both in the realm of "graphical programming language in the browser". One is a pay-per-$something, and the other is libre/gratis. And sure, you could use backend js to write scripts to do $thing, but requires a lot of setup to work with different APIs. So absolutely no, js+text editor is nowhere near the same.
fphhotchips 8y ago
This feels like an IPaaS to me - pricing aside, how would you compare this to built.io, SnapLogic, Jitterbit, Informatica and Boomi? Disclosure: recent ex-employee of SnapLogic.
tomglynch 8y ago
Hi Alex, I see in your examples section the pulling data from various cryptocurrency API's. I see a lot of potential in your product through targeting the cryptocurrency market. Is this a direct goal of yours or just a use case?
- alexyaseen 8y ago
  I'd classify it as a budding use case but one we're really interested in! Anything specific you're trying to do or would like to see Parabola support? Would love to hear more - hi [at] parabola.io
boyd 8y ago
Request for your kind consideration: I completely empathize with the need to tier your pricing based on features, and have certain items that one only gets for "contact us"-level pricing. But, I am very bummed out every time I see a startup where SSO is that feature. SAML/Okta, fine, whatever. But, it'd be really nice for any little startup to be able to let their users log in with G Suite and get two factor and all of the other security niceties that come with it. Letting folks adopt security best practices shouldn't cost them money (and isn't really core to your value prop). Just my two cents. Ps. With GDPR coming into effect, and all the surrounding brouhaha, this is particularly important as many of your use cases are going to be piping around and manipulating user data.
- amanzi 8y ago
  I agree - I often see companies offer security features for "premium" customers only. This is the wrong approach and I wish more services focused on security first and then price the premium features accordingly.
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    The problem is that security is often the feature that has the biggest gap between how much the end user cares about it and how much the IT buyer cares about it, which makes it perfect as an upsell.
IloveHN84 8y ago
It would be cool to have the tool working also in offline scenarios, where no internet connection is possible, tough an automated workflow is still needed/possible
- pookeh 8y ago
  What kind of integrations would you expect in an offline feature? Do you have a specific use case in your industry?
  - hestefisk 8y ago
    Payments, PCI DSS for instance.
some_account 8y ago
It's a very nice idea but these tools always have limitations that become super annoying after a while. Programming is total freedom to do what you want and these tools try to make it look like you cab drag and drop data flows together and it will just work in a optimal way. And it will at first, until your first special or odd requirement needs to somehow be implemented in that tool.
- murukesh_s 8y ago
  Why can't you use a coding widget(not sure if this tool supports it) in those special cases? In that way common things are super easy and you can also tackle those corner cases as well.
  - hacker_9 8y ago
    But who is writing the widget? If it's a programmer, then why is he using this tool when most of this stuff is one liners in code anyway? And if it's a non-programmer, he now can't do something that he may have still been able to do in excel.
    - derrikcurran 8y ago
      A non-developer who has access to developers. A developer can be paid to write the widget, which would likely be cheaper, easier, and faster than paying a developer for every minor change. It really depends on context. In a larger organization, for example, the user might have access to plenty of developers but need to open a ticket and wait forever every time they need something.
- dcre 8y ago
  "total freedom" — never heard of it
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  Snap! is a visual "blocks" programming language like Scratch, but with the full power of Scheme: First class functions. Visual lexical closures. User defined blocks including control structures. Macros and special forms. Call with current continuation! Written in JavaScript and easy to integrate with JavaScript libraries. https://snap.berkeley.edu https://snap.berkeley.edu Adding Machine Learning Blocks to Snap! https://s4scoding.com/adding-machine-learning-blocks-to-snap/ https://s4scoding.com/adding-machine-learning-blocks-to-snap... https://project.ecraft2learn.eu/ https://project.ecraft2learn.eu/ https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/ https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/
BerislavLopac 8y ago
Hi, I'm curious -- what are the underlying technologies?
- sbr464 8y ago
  I noticed they were using jsPlumb https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/ https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/ for the UI builder

zeptomu 8y ago

Hey, nice work. What would you say differentiates this service from say, Zapier?

alexyaseen 8y ago
I really like how dbranes described it below: >"drag-and-drop data transformation pipelines that comes with app integrations at both ends" Parabola is very focused on data transformation/manipulation. Our best customers end up with hundreds of steps in their flows, essentially creating full-fledged programs. As part of this focus on data transformation, we primarily operate in a batch-processing fashion. We also perform calculations live while you work on your flow, similar to a spreadsheet or a python notebook. Zapier on the other hand is great at connecting with TONS of tools, and makes integrations between those tools really smooth. It operates best in an event-based paradigm when you don't need to do much transformation/calculation in between connection points. There's probably a small amount of overlap at the edges, but in general it's pretty clear when a use case will be a good fit for a tool like Zapier or when it's a good fit for Parabola.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

Greetings! I'll get straight to the point. I've used Node-Red (https://nodered.org https://nodered.org) in building my own IoT network along with automating quite a lot of things. I run my own Node-Red instance locally as well as online. Node-red has 1500 different functionality plugins, including things like "push flow to another node-red installation". Node-red also uses javascript as its frontend and backend. I can share whole code by giving someone the js block - which means that backing up flows is trivial. Sharing is also as easy. So, I looked at your solution. It seems like a prettified version of Node-red with backup, js, and lack of ecosystem. So, what's your buy-in? What're you doing better than a spare VPS running node-red? Not everyone is going to install and maintain a server.... but you're here on HN. I'd say that 95% or higher could get Nodered up and running here.

jermaustin1 8y ago
My time is more valuable than running, managing, maintaining, and monitoring a VPS just to save $180/mo. If I've saved 1.5 hours, it's paid for itself, and I've been freed up to be productive on other things, like watching YouTube.
- pier25 8y ago
  With cloud functions you don’t really need to do any of that
statictype 8y ago
I suppose with that logic you don’t even need node red. You could just put your requirements into a .js file. What’s your buy-in? What are you doing with node red that can’t be done with a text editor and npm?
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  That's certainly reducto-ad-absurdum if iv'e ever seen one. They're both in the realm of "graphical programming language in the browser". One is a pay-per-$something, and the other is libre/gratis. And sure, you could use backend js to write scripts to do $thing, but requires a lot of setup to work with different APIs. So absolutely no, js+text editor is nowhere near the same.

fphhotchips 8y ago

This feels like an IPaaS to me - pricing aside, how would you compare this to built.io, SnapLogic, Jitterbit, Informatica and Boomi? Disclosure: recent ex-employee of SnapLogic.

tomglynch 8y ago

Hi Alex, I see in your examples section the pulling data from various cryptocurrency API's. I see a lot of potential in your product through targeting the cryptocurrency market. Is this a direct goal of yours or just a use case?

alexyaseen 8y ago
I'd classify it as a budding use case but one we're really interested in! Anything specific you're trying to do or would like to see Parabola support? Would love to hear more - hi [at] parabola.io

boyd 8y ago

Request for your kind consideration: I completely empathize with the need to tier your pricing based on features, and have certain items that one only gets for "contact us"-level pricing. But, I am very bummed out every time I see a startup where SSO is that feature. SAML/Okta, fine, whatever. But, it'd be really nice for any little startup to be able to let their users log in with G Suite and get two factor and all of the other security niceties that come with it. Letting folks adopt security best practices shouldn't cost them money (and isn't really core to your value prop). Just my two cents. Ps. With GDPR coming into effect, and all the surrounding brouhaha, this is particularly important as many of your use cases are going to be piping around and manipulating user data.

amanzi 8y ago
I agree - I often see companies offer security features for "premium" customers only. This is the wrong approach and I wish more services focused on security first and then price the premium features accordingly.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  The problem is that security is often the feature that has the biggest gap between how much the end user cares about it and how much the IT buyer cares about it, which makes it perfect as an upsell.

IloveHN84 8y ago

It would be cool to have the tool working also in offline scenarios, where no internet connection is possible, tough an automated workflow is still needed/possible

pookeh 8y ago
What kind of integrations would you expect in an offline feature? Do you have a specific use case in your industry?
- hestefisk 8y ago
  Payments, PCI DSS for instance.

some_account 8y ago

It's a very nice idea but these tools always have limitations that become super annoying after a while. Programming is total freedom to do what you want and these tools try to make it look like you cab drag and drop data flows together and it will just work in a optimal way. And it will at first, until your first special or odd requirement needs to somehow be implemented in that tool.

murukesh_s 8y ago
Why can't you use a coding widget(not sure if this tool supports it) in those special cases? In that way common things are super easy and you can also tackle those corner cases as well.
- hacker_9 8y ago
  But who is writing the widget? If it's a programmer, then why is he using this tool when most of this stuff is one liners in code anyway? And if it's a non-programmer, he now can't do something that he may have still been able to do in excel.
  - derrikcurran 8y ago
    A non-developer who has access to developers. A developer can be paid to write the widget, which would likely be cheaper, easier, and faster than paying a developer for every minor change. It really depends on context. In a larger organization, for example, the user might have access to plenty of developers but need to open a ticket and wait forever every time they need something.
dcre 8y ago
"total freedom" — never heard of it
DonHopkins 8y ago
Snap! is a visual "blocks" programming language like Scratch, but with the full power of Scheme: First class functions. Visual lexical closures. User defined blocks including control structures. Macros and special forms. Call with current continuation! Written in JavaScript and easy to integrate with JavaScript libraries. https://snap.berkeley.edu https://snap.berkeley.edu Adding Machine Learning Blocks to Snap! https://s4scoding.com/adding-machine-learning-blocks-to-snap/ https://s4scoding.com/adding-machine-learning-blocks-to-snap... https://project.ecraft2learn.eu/ https://project.ecraft2learn.eu/ https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/ https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/

BerislavLopac 8y ago

Hi, I'm curious -- what are the underlying technologies?

sbr464 8y ago
I noticed they were using jsPlumb https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/ https://jsplumbtoolkit.com/ for the UI builder