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Not to crash the party or anything. Supabase is great and all (congratulations BTW on such a huge series B!) but in terms of feature completeness and getting ac

Not to crash the party or anything. Supabase is great and all (congratulations BTW on such a huge series B!) but in terms of feature completeness and getting actual products built, it doesn't come close to Parse[0]. Same with Appwrite. Both of these are very popular but they either lack essential features or have them behind a subscription wall. For example, the OSS version of Supabase (last I checked) doesn't include the edge functions which are really important for easily computing stuff on the server side. Parse on the other hand is 100% open source and has a huge feature set. It's older than all of these lo-code tools and actually helps solve the issues one comes across when using such tools. Another thing is extending these tools which is a pain. For example, Parse supports multiple databases by default (postgres & MongoDB) and the ability to write a custom adapter if you need something else. Similarly, if you at any point need to go 100% custom it also makes that possible so you are never locked in. These tools however don't have that level of low-level control and are general all or nothing kind of tools best for small-to-medium sized problems which don't have a lot of room to grow. But both of these (Appwrite & Supabase) are super markety. Appwrite is all over the place with their ads, Supabase got a huge trend when it launched etc. Parse on the other hand is not too good at marketing their product being fully community run which is one reason not many know of it. Another is their not-so-fancy docs. I have no stake in any of these products: just my conclusion after having tried all of these. [0] https://parseplatform.org/ https://parseplatform.org/

jacobsimon 4y ago
Wow I had no idea Parse was still around and open source, I thought Facebook shut it down. It certainly was very popular back in the day!
qabqabaca 4y ago
True as that may be, in a production app I don't think breadth of features trumps having paid support, SLA's, comprehensive documentation, resources, tutorials etc. On top of that, funding like this gives a pretty optimistic outlook on the future of the project when compared to a fully community managed open-source project that could become abandonware.
programmarchy 4y ago
Looks like Supabase does support edge functions now. I've inherited a Parse codebase in the past, and thought it was pretty gross. You're stuck building with their ORM abstractions, so it hurts when you need to do something complex. I view Parse as Facebook abandonware that's been salvaged by a community of developers who need to maintain legacy apps on life support. I think it'd be unwise to start a new project backed by Parse. Having to deal with one-size-fits-all database "adaptors" for either Mongo-flavored or Postgres-flavored Parse is limiting, whereas having direct access to Postgres is a huge benefit of Supabase. With Supabase, you can leverage all of the goodies that Postgres has to offer, which is exactly what I want as a developer. Even something as simple as writing custom SQL is a well-defined operation within the Supabase ecosystem, whereas with Parse you're in undefined glhf territory. Add that to first-class support for realtime updates, row-level security, and their other features, and Supabase comes out way ahead in my opinion.
- longrod 4y ago
  All of those are supported in Parse as well. ORMs are a feature, not a bug. Writing SQL is all well and good but if you have GraphQL, it's not an issue. I think the whole point behind tools such as Supabase & Parse is a well defined & safe set of defaults which can easily be customized if the need arises. Parse is very well suited for this as you can custom endpoints, custom pgsql functions, custom edge functions in multiple languages (Go, Node etc) etc. Supabase is not that customizable. Sure, Supabase has a huge funding etc and it might get there someday but if you are into self-hosting (from which POV I am speaking), Parse comes out way ahead.
radihuq 4y ago
I like Supabase's SaaS model because I don't have to worry about infra work; I can just build. Maybe eventually I'll have to explore other options, but for now my projects are still small enough where their feature set meet my needs. I think $25/mo is well worth it, knowing: 1. I can spin up a db & auth for a new project without having to spend hours on configuration & deployment 2. I can sleep well at night not worrying about one faulty line of code bringing down my entire app
haolez 4y ago
Btw, are there any plans for Parse to move from Flow to TypeScript?
jrvarela56 4y ago
This is textbook startup strategy: new companies disrupt incumbents with products that have less features. The startup finds a pain point in their audience and delivers on that. I don't know about Supabase enough to comment, but your assessment of them having an inferior product + their popularity makes me think the 'disruptive innovation' process is on its way. Having less features makes it easier to talk to users about their main issues and reduce friction in onboarding/setup/etc. Maybe Parse became so complete it's really hard to get started. I guess my doubt is, what's the point you are trying to make? That their product isn't good enough to warrant so much attention + funding since there are better options, that it's just marketing and good docs and everyone is just being fooled into using a lesser product?

jacobsimon 4y ago

Wow I had no idea Parse was still around and open source, I thought Facebook shut it down. It certainly was very popular back in the day!

qabqabaca 4y ago

True as that may be, in a production app I don't think breadth of features trumps having paid support, SLA's, comprehensive documentation, resources, tutorials etc. On top of that, funding like this gives a pretty optimistic outlook on the future of the project when compared to a fully community managed open-source project that could become abandonware.

programmarchy 4y ago

Looks like Supabase does support edge functions now. I've inherited a Parse codebase in the past, and thought it was pretty gross. You're stuck building with their ORM abstractions, so it hurts when you need to do something complex. I view Parse as Facebook abandonware that's been salvaged by a community of developers who need to maintain legacy apps on life support. I think it'd be unwise to start a new project backed by Parse. Having to deal with one-size-fits-all database "adaptors" for either Mongo-flavored or Postgres-flavored Parse is limiting, whereas having direct access to Postgres is a huge benefit of Supabase. With Supabase, you can leverage all of the goodies that Postgres has to offer, which is exactly what I want as a developer. Even something as simple as writing custom SQL is a well-defined operation within the Supabase ecosystem, whereas with Parse you're in undefined glhf territory. Add that to first-class support for realtime updates, row-level security, and their other features, and Supabase comes out way ahead in my opinion.

longrod 4y ago
All of those are supported in Parse as well. ORMs are a feature, not a bug. Writing SQL is all well and good but if you have GraphQL, it's not an issue. I think the whole point behind tools such as Supabase & Parse is a well defined & safe set of defaults which can easily be customized if the need arises. Parse is very well suited for this as you can custom endpoints, custom pgsql functions, custom edge functions in multiple languages (Go, Node etc) etc. Supabase is not that customizable. Sure, Supabase has a huge funding etc and it might get there someday but if you are into self-hosting (from which POV I am speaking), Parse comes out way ahead.

radihuq 4y ago

I like Supabase's SaaS model because I don't have to worry about infra work; I can just build. Maybe eventually I'll have to explore other options, but for now my projects are still small enough where their feature set meet my needs. I think $25/mo is well worth it, knowing: 1. I can spin up a db & auth for a new project without having to spend hours on configuration & deployment 2. I can sleep well at night not worrying about one faulty line of code bringing down my entire app

haolez 4y ago

Btw, are there any plans for Parse to move from Flow to TypeScript?

jrvarela56 4y ago

This is textbook startup strategy: new companies disrupt incumbents with products that have less features. The startup finds a pain point in their audience and delivers on that. I don't know about Supabase enough to comment, but your assessment of them having an inferior product + their popularity makes me think the 'disruptive innovation' process is on its way. Having less features makes it easier to talk to users about their main issues and reduce friction in onboarding/setup/etc. Maybe Parse became so complete it's really hard to get started. I guess my doubt is, what's the point you are trying to make? That their product isn't good enough to warrant so much attention + funding since there are better options, that it's just marketing and good docs and everyone is just being fooled into using a lesser product?