5 ms·

Show HN: Appteum, a low-code backend development platform build for developers

7 points by nikTheo 3y ago

Hi HN community, We are Nikolas and Giannis, founders of Appteum. For the last few months we've been building Appteum and can now share our public Beta with you. Appteum is a low-code Backend development platform that makes it easy for developers to configure the backend for their apps. You can configure your backend in our web app and then using our Typescript SDK you can interact with your backend in your code. Why we built this: - We couldn’t find a low code tool that provides the backend abstractions we needed but at the same time retain the flexibility of dropping down into code. - We found current low-code tools like Bubble and Retool don’t offer a great experience for developers. We prefer using our own IDEs, version control etc. - Sometimes, you need to use a service that is not supported by the low-code platform. It would be great if you could write a few lines of code that would make it easy to integrate into your app. - From our experience, the traditional way of building APIs is time consuming and repetitive. It would be great if the API would reflect any change on data or security definitions automatically. Our beta version lets you: - Create Objects, Fields and Relationships (Objects are equivalent to tables in relational databases). - Define object-level and field-level security for your users. - Query your data over our API using a simple SQL syntax. - Get access to your objects data instantly with our APIs. - Import our Typescript SDK in your app and conveniently access your backend configuration. Our business model is to give developers and their companies a development platform that abstracts away the backend development of an app. While it is a beta, we believe that even today the experience is meaningful. We are working everyday to make Appteum better for our users. Please give it a shot at appteum.com and let us know how it goes. You will notice that a log-in is required, we don’t collect any telemetry data of our users! - Main website: [https://appteum.com https://appteum.com] - Portal: [https://admin.appteum.com https://admin.appteum.com] - Docs: [https://docs.appteum.com https://docs.appteum.com] Join our community on Discord [https://discord.gg/8ETmPedepG https://discord.gg/8ETmPedepG] Follow us on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/appteum https://www.linkedin.com/company/appteum] Let us know what you think! Ask us anything!

Mimisole 3y ago
Wow! this looks promising I want to use it for a Backoffice app is a valid use case? Is it secure? Any limitations on the data I can import?
- nikTheo 3y ago
  Hi Mimisole the platform is multitenant with each app isolated in its workpsace, with profile and permissions sets you can specify user permissions up to the field level. We haven't implemented the batch data import functionality yet but the only limitation we will have is the batch size. You can insert data one at a time for now. We are currently in beta. you can try to create a small example Backoffice app on the platform to try out what we offer and if it suits you. if you need any help setting up your workspace or have any questions we are on discord.
f1ght4fun 3y ago
The platform is really something worth having a look at! It saves you lots of time writing tedious repetitive crud code or another data querying engine. Also it provided much needed security access control out of the box for different user roles. Must try!
- Gns89 3y ago
  Thanks f1ght4fun. I agree with both points here - most backend developers find it boring and time consuming creating new or modifying existing crud APIs every time the business requirements change. Now as far as the data query engine, I can feel the pain of whoever tries to choose the best ORM out there. For the last few years there were a lot of efforts to abstract away anything related to databases (native sql, admin, internals etc) but all of them have serious limitations at the end of the day. With Appteum we try to handle all of these pain points for you, so developers can focus on the business requirements they have in front of them. Happy to hear what you plan to use Appteum for. Hop in our Discord and we can chat: https://discord.gg/8ETmPedepG https://discord.gg/8ETmPedepG Disclaimer: Appteum co-founder.
andneo 3y ago
i don't see any other use case for this tool other than simple crud apps. what if my app needs to expose data over web sockets or i need to implement an operation that is not an api request? how does this compare to supabase?
- nikTheo 3y ago
  You are right andneo the platform as it stands now is suitable for building CRUD applications since what we currently offer is to setup you objects fields, user permissions and data APIs through configuration. We plan to implement data streams and workflows with Lambda style functions that will cover even the most complex application demands in the near future. Supabase is a nice service with a lot of functionality but requires that you know advanced features of postgres (rls policies etc ..) to properly setup your data security. With supabase you are bound to what features can be developed on top of postgres which is a double edge sword in my opinion. in addition, we believe that our simple sql syntax over API is much more intuitive and easy to learn in contrast to postgrest syntax.
serkis85 3y ago
Saw your product and joined the beta version that you released and have some questions from technical aspects of the software. 1) We are a team that building software programs for our clients, what is the benefit technical wise and business wise to use your platform instead create everything from scratch by us? 2) The object that we're creating in your system, how you're handling and storing the data?
- Gns89 3y ago
  Thanks serkis85 glad to hear that you joined our beta. - Technical wise we provide the backend scaffolding, so as a developer you don't need to handle the infrastructure, db, APIs etc. for your app. Once you configure your backend settings we use this configuration as metadata and handle everything it needs to be done in the background. Using our APIs/SDK in your code is like you have your db, apis, and security in a single library. Business wise, using Appteum saves you all that time you would otherwise need to set up and maintain your backend if you choose to create everything from scratch. - If I understood your question correctly you are referring to the security of your data. Appteum is a multitenant platform with each workspace being physically isolated, we designed the system this way to provide maximum security for our users. In addition to the internal security of your data, we provide profiles and permission sets where you can configure the access your user has to your data up to the object/field level.
  - serkis85 3y ago
    Gns89 thanks for your proper response. Now I see the benefits and the logic behind. Looking forward to using the appteum more and build an app base on it. thanks
geomatblue 3y ago
I used the beta version of the platform and it seems very promising for CRUD APIs. I have some questions: 1) Can I export my data? 2) Can I archive my data? 3) Do you have rate limit? 4) If I have an entity with huge amount of data, can I use slicing instead of pagination?
- Gns89 3y ago
  Thanks geomatblue. - At the moment you can export all your data using our APIs. Would adding an export functionality to csv format be valuable to you? - We dont have any archive feature at the moment but we could easily add soft-deletes is it the same for your use case? - For the duration of the beta we dont have any rate limits on accounts other than the maximum records you can fetch in a single batch using our GET API. We plan though to add API rate limits later on. - You can combine both slicing and cursor based pagination. I will give you an example: You can use the GET API [0] and limit the amount of data to retrieve using the LIMIT keyword and subsequently call the CURSOR API [1] and control the batch size using the x-query-batch-size header Hope it helps, let us know if you have any other questions/comments. [0] https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsService.data https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsS... [1] https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsService.dataCursor https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsS...

7 points by nikTheo 3y ago

Mimisole 3y ago

Wow! this looks promising I want to use it for a Backoffice app is a valid use case? Is it secure? Any limitations on the data I can import?

nikTheo 3y ago
Hi Mimisole the platform is multitenant with each app isolated in its workpsace, with profile and permissions sets you can specify user permissions up to the field level. We haven't implemented the batch data import functionality yet but the only limitation we will have is the batch size. You can insert data one at a time for now. We are currently in beta. you can try to create a small example Backoffice app on the platform to try out what we offer and if it suits you. if you need any help setting up your workspace or have any questions we are on discord.

f1ght4fun 3y ago

The platform is really something worth having a look at! It saves you lots of time writing tedious repetitive crud code or another data querying engine. Also it provided much needed security access control out of the box for different user roles. Must try!

Gns89 3y ago
Thanks f1ght4fun. I agree with both points here - most backend developers find it boring and time consuming creating new or modifying existing crud APIs every time the business requirements change. Now as far as the data query engine, I can feel the pain of whoever tries to choose the best ORM out there. For the last few years there were a lot of efforts to abstract away anything related to databases (native sql, admin, internals etc) but all of them have serious limitations at the end of the day. With Appteum we try to handle all of these pain points for you, so developers can focus on the business requirements they have in front of them. Happy to hear what you plan to use Appteum for. Hop in our Discord and we can chat: https://discord.gg/8ETmPedepG https://discord.gg/8ETmPedepG Disclaimer: Appteum co-founder.

andneo 3y ago

i don't see any other use case for this tool other than simple crud apps. what if my app needs to expose data over web sockets or i need to implement an operation that is not an api request? how does this compare to supabase?

nikTheo 3y ago
You are right andneo the platform as it stands now is suitable for building CRUD applications since what we currently offer is to setup you objects fields, user permissions and data APIs through configuration. We plan to implement data streams and workflows with Lambda style functions that will cover even the most complex application demands in the near future. Supabase is a nice service with a lot of functionality but requires that you know advanced features of postgres (rls policies etc ..) to properly setup your data security. With supabase you are bound to what features can be developed on top of postgres which is a double edge sword in my opinion. in addition, we believe that our simple sql syntax over API is much more intuitive and easy to learn in contrast to postgrest syntax.

serkis85 3y ago

Saw your product and joined the beta version that you released and have some questions from technical aspects of the software. 1) We are a team that building software programs for our clients, what is the benefit technical wise and business wise to use your platform instead create everything from scratch by us? 2) The object that we're creating in your system, how you're handling and storing the data?

Gns89 3y ago
Thanks serkis85 glad to hear that you joined our beta. - Technical wise we provide the backend scaffolding, so as a developer you don't need to handle the infrastructure, db, APIs etc. for your app. Once you configure your backend settings we use this configuration as metadata and handle everything it needs to be done in the background. Using our APIs/SDK in your code is like you have your db, apis, and security in a single library. Business wise, using Appteum saves you all that time you would otherwise need to set up and maintain your backend if you choose to create everything from scratch. - If I understood your question correctly you are referring to the security of your data. Appteum is a multitenant platform with each workspace being physically isolated, we designed the system this way to provide maximum security for our users. In addition to the internal security of your data, we provide profiles and permission sets where you can configure the access your user has to your data up to the object/field level.
- serkis85 3y ago
  Gns89 thanks for your proper response. Now I see the benefits and the logic behind. Looking forward to using the appteum more and build an app base on it. thanks

geomatblue 3y ago

I used the beta version of the platform and it seems very promising for CRUD APIs. I have some questions: 1) Can I export my data? 2) Can I archive my data? 3) Do you have rate limit? 4) If I have an entity with huge amount of data, can I use slicing instead of pagination?

Gns89 3y ago
Thanks geomatblue. - At the moment you can export all your data using our APIs. Would adding an export functionality to csv format be valuable to you? - We dont have any archive feature at the moment but we could easily add soft-deletes is it the same for your use case? - For the duration of the beta we dont have any rate limits on accounts other than the maximum records you can fetch in a single batch using our GET API. We plan though to add API rate limits later on. - You can combine both slicing and cursor based pagination. I will give you an example: You can use the GET API [0] and limit the amount of data to retrieve using the LIMIT keyword and subsequently call the CURSOR API [1] and control the batch size using the x-query-batch-size header Hope it helps, let us know if you have any other questions/comments. [0] https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsService.data https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsS... [1] https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsService.dataCursor https://docs.appteum.com/api/#tag/Objects/operation/ObjectsS...