The Best Five Free Mobile Backend Services

The demand for free mobile backend services is snowballing with the amplifying growth of smartphone users. A forecast by Statista shows that the global smartphone user base is around 7.2 billion. This ratio will hit 7.9 billion by 2028. 

More mobile phones mean developers will have to develop more applications in a short period of time. In this regard, the use of Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) solutions would be ideal. The MBaaS industry’s market share is also swiftly booming. 

MarketsandMarkets anticipates that the value of the mobile backend market will reach 9.2 billion USD by the end of 2028. This figure was only 4.1 billion USD in 2023. These stats emphasize the significance of MBaaS platforms for building mobile backends. 

That is why this article shares one of the leading mobile backend services and their significant features. You will also explore the traits and benefits of using Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) providers. 

What is a Mobile Backend as a Service?

MBaaS, or Mobile Backend as a Service, is a cloud computing solution that helps run, build, and manage mobile application backends.

The MBaaS platform hooks up apps’ server sides with compatible databases, storage, and computing instances using SDKs and APIs.

Moreover, cloud code functions, push notifications, authentication, networking, and server management are also its properties.

Correspondingly, if you are looking for mobile backend offerings with a free tier, you must consider Back4app, Backendless, 8Base, Firebase, and Kuzzle. 

What are the Features of a Mobile Backend as a Service?

Let’s delve into the pivotal features of mobile BaaS solutions:

Data Model

MBaaS providers support the data modeling process. This approach lets businesses visually display distinct kinds of data, their relations, and traits.

Data models are designed according to your project’s requirements. This feature is also helpful for collecting effective information. 

Improved database performance, more consistency, easy data mapping and fewer dev errors are further advantages of data models.

APIs

Another incredible property of backend platforms is the presence of pre-installed APIs. These APIs allow developers to communicate with databases and further server-side functionalities on the fly. 

By the same token, APIs play the role of bridges when it comes to interacting with outer ecosystems and third-party services. Two prominent APIs that the majority of BaaS vendors offer are REST and GraphQL.

Serverless Functions

This single-purpose feature is conventionally employed to accrue business logic to applications without taking care of servers.

However, serverless functions are valuable for automating workflows, shipping required computing instances, and robust code deployments.   

Notifications

Push notifications and in-app messages are essential to keeping your mobile app users intact. MBaaS vendors have a feature called notifications.

This function permits you to send customized notifications and in-app messages without scripting additional codes. 

What are the Advantages of using a Mobile Backend as a Service?

Here are the leading benefits of building apps with MBaaS:

Fast Time to Market

It is ultrafast in building and running mobile backends using MBaaS solutions. Unlike traditional programming, you can decrease your server-side coding duration by up to 80% with BaaS providers.

Similarly, automated workflows, readymade APIs and visual data models also speed up your time to market. 

No Infrastructure Hassles

When they use providers, dev teams don’t have to administer and upgrade the infrastructure. Yes, MBaaS platforms are responsible for providing fully managed hardware and software resources to businesses and developers.

Focus on User Experience

Mobile BaaS vendors take care of all tasks that occur on the backend. It signifies that the dev teams and businesses can emphasize core competencies and frontend operations. Consequently, it becomes straightforward for companies to confer improved user experience (UX) to app users. 

Top 5 Free Backend Services

Here are the leading free backend services:

1. Back4app

Back4app is an excellent Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) provider with a free tier offering.

Established in 2015, It is a developer-friendly platform that allows you to build low-code mobile backends with great ease. 

With this provider, you don’t need to develop your mobile application from scratch. Yes, it has plenty of SDKs and APIs that help you craft server-side functionalities within days or weeks. 

Features

• Real-time Database – Gathering and searching relational data with Back4app is electric. Indeed, this provider offers outstanding support for relational data models. It also permits you to backlog data locally and access it anytime, even when you are offline.

• Cloud Functions – Like all renowned MBaaS solutions, Back4app has cloud code functions. This feature enables dev teams to compute business logic utilizing single-purpose JS functions. 

• User Management – Back4app authenticates mobile app users effortlessly. Moreover, it provides a complete user management system for session control, password encryption, and social signups. 

• Notifications – Dev teams can quickly arrange push notifications to engage mobile app users with this trait. You can also employ a geofencing approach to learn end users’ locations and preferences.

Pricing

The Free Plan is suitable for learners and mock-up projects. This free tier program costs nothing if you acquire 20MB file upload, 1GB storage and transfer, 1 app, and 25k monthly requests.

Collaborators, 250MB data storage, AWS infrastructure, and community support are further highlights of this package. 

2. Firebase

Are you seeking an AI-powered cloud computing solution to craft, deploy and run your mobile applications?

If yes, you can consider Firebase. Supported by Google Cloud, Firebase offers a real-time database, serverless functions, authentication and push notifications to build cross-platform applications. 

This platform automates workflows and provides ready-to-use extensions to speed up the development of your mobile backends. Using Firebase, you can also connect with several third-party tools.

Features

• Data Model – Cloud Firestore and Realtime DB are major database offerings of this provider that query and backlog data in the meantime. These DBs support NoSQL datasets. However, you can employ Data Connect for relational data models. 

• Authentication – Firebase lets app users register or sign in through multiple social or email platforms. Developers can leverage FirebaseUI Auth to tailor a sign-in page for this purpose.

• Cloud Functions – This feature authorizes the dev teams to execute server-side scripts without administering infrastructure. Moreover, it lets you keep your business logic confidential.

• Remote Config – Most businesses choose Firebase because of its absolute personalization. Yes, Firebase offers feature management tools to optimize mobile app performance. 

Pricing

The Spark Plan is a freemium package of Firebase. It bills you nothing if your app has 50k MAUs, its requirements are under 50k daily reads, and you want 5GB cloud storage. 

3. Backendless

Backendless is one of the finest low-code/no-code free mobile backend services that comes with a drag-and-drop interface. Its visual database lets you design lightweight mobile backends without technical expertise.

Similarly, its Codeless API simplifies the backend development because you don’t have to write lengthy codes for server-side functionalities. 

Features

• Push Notifications – Developers can quickly generate and tailor push notification pages with built-in templates. Backendless also permits them to schedule these notifications.

• Database – This mobile backend endorses both relational and non-relational data models. In addition, you can backlog, query and fetch the data spontaneously.

• Authentication – Backendless offers more than 18 solutions to authenticate mobile app users so you can easily manage app users.

Pricing

The Free Plan includes unmetered API calls, 15k data objects for tables, 5 real-time connections, 1GB disk space, and 100k push notifications. 

4. 8Base

8Base is another serverless mobile backend development service that depends on GraphQL APIs. This highly scalable platform runs on the top of Amazon Web Services and gives users a sleek experience. 

With this provider, you can integrate third-party services, set roles, handle files, and manage users swiftly. To do so, you just have to follow five simple steps: modeling, data, query, roles, and functions.

Features

• Frontend Technology Support – 8Base is highly compatible with a variety of prominent client-side technologies, including React, Flutter, Vue, Swift, Ionic, and Angular.

• GraphQL Engine – This feature is designed to provide an extraordinary dev experience. It documents your backend automatically and uses advanced approaches to filter data spontaneously. 

• Data Modeling – You can employ drag-and-drop functionalities to elaborate your data with 8Base. Yes, it is very straightforward to set a data schema here.

Pricing

8Base’s Free package authorizes you 2.5k DB rows, 0.5GB file storage, 100k API calls and 2GB bandwidth every month. 

5. Kuzzle

Kuzzle Backend is another renowned MBaaS provider on our list. This is an open-source server-side development platform that supports NoSQL datasets.

Similarly, you can build and deploy on-premises and cloud applications using Kuzzle.

Besides, Kuzzle is a recommended provider for generating mobile backends, and you can also adopt it for IoT and web projects.

Features

• Authentication – Kuzzle bestows more than 500 authentication approaches to register and control the app users.

• Support for Modern Technologies – With this provider, you can get exceptional backing for modern programming technologies like Node.js, Redis, Typescript and Elasticsearch.

• Real-time Engine – This is an incredible Kuzzle feature that sends notifications and serves requested data in the meantime.

Pricing

Kuzzle Backend is an open-source, free-to-download solution. However, you can request a demo to understand it properly.

Conclusion

This article discusses the top 5 mobile backend services with a free tier. To accelerate server-side development with battle-tested technologies, you can choose Back4app, Backendless, and Kuzzle.

Correspondingly, 8Base and Firebase are also considerable options for simplifying backend development.