Back4App Blog
Alex Kusmenkovsky

An Instagram clone using SwiftUI and GraphQL

Today we are starting a series of blog posts that will teach you how to use a lot of cool tools to build your own Social Network: an application that resembles Instagram.

We won’t save up on tech and will be using the latest and greatest: Parse, GraphQL, some NodeJS and especially the (yet to be released) latest Apple’s framework SwiftUI. 

This will take a few posts in order to be fully functional, but when we get there, you will realize how simple it can be to get your ideas up and running with very little effort here at Back4app.

For better learning, download the iOS Instagram Clone project with source code.

So, it seems it is time for…

 


Alex Kusmenkovsky

GraphQL iOS: Using Cloud Functions in a Swift App

On this article, I showed you how to use GraphQL with NodeJS Cloud Code in Back4app.

And on this guide, I showed you how to use Apollo GraphQL iOS Client with Swift.

Now let’s bring it all together and make lots of complicated operations by producing really easy code. And let’s also have XCode to automatically generate any API code for us even when we change Classes.

Sounds good? So get some coffee and get along!


George Batschinski

Parse Self Hosted vs Back4App

Parse self hosting

Parse versus Back4App

Did you know that Parse and Back4app are two very different platforms? Often beginners confuse the two, which leads them to choose the wrong platform. We’re frequently asked by our users, what are the differences between Parse vs. Back4App. To help answer that, we have created the most comprehensive comparison of Back4App vs. Parse (self-hosted version).


Alex Kusmenkovsky

GraphQL and NodeJS integrations using Cloud Code Functions

GraphQL brings sugar, spice, and everything nice to API developers, but it is basically a query language so you can specify what you are looking for.

What if you need more business intelligence than that in your application?

What if you need some logic along with it?

What if you want that neat NPM Module module along with it?

Well, fasten your seat belts because today I’ll show you something very powerful. And with great powers, comes great… well… great time savings, great possibilities, great lots of good stuff…

 


Alex Kusmenkovsky

GraphQL: is it the REST API “killer”?

After the implementation of the GraphQL support in Parse a lot of people reached me with a few questions, some of them worried about the future of REST API.
Is GraphQL going to “kill” it?
What will happen with my REST API methods? Do I need to rewrite my code?

In this article I will cover those questions, but short answer is: no, you don’t have to worry because GraphQL is not going to “kill” REST API and you also don’t have to worry about rewriting your already working REST API methods.


George Batschinski

Hasura Alternatives – Top Competitors

hasura-alternatives
hasura-alternatives

Hasura proceeds to innovate and dominate the real-time GraphQL market. While it extends a frequently refined collection of products for many varieties of development requirements, it may be not always the easiest, most agile, or cheapest option. There’s a frequently increasing inventory of cloud companies that extend products and services in ways that can avail developers with easiness and affordability.

In this blog post, I’ll show some of the alternatives to Hasura; some companies that are still young but still useful to developers.  Others are more stable businesses and running for a while.  The tutorial will include subsequent competitors:

  • Back4App – GraphQL database hosting platform
  • Parse – Open-Source GraphQL framework
  • GraphCool – Open-Source framework to deploy serverless GraphQL backends
  • AWS App Sync – Service to run GraphQL in the cloud
  • Postgraphile – GraphQL APIs from a Postgres schema
  • Subzero – GraphQL & REST APIs for databases


Alex Kusmenkovsky

Mastering Web API authentication with Parse – Javascript SDK and GraphQL flavours

Many applications, especially websites, need to restrict access to their content, and having user accounts that show only information relevant to that user in a secure way is the most popular way to accomplish that.

Today we will learn how to implement the Login functionality to an already existing HTML page, writing very little code and having Parse doing all the heavy lifting for you, and in order to do that, I chose the Login Form template which you can download for free.

We will be using two distinct technologies that you can choose from: the Javascript SDK and GraphQL through Javascript.

GraphQL is our brand new shiny technology that was just released and my goal is to compare both ways to do the same thing, so you can pick the one you like best.
SPOILER ALERT!! I am sure you will like GraphQL better…

That already has all the necessary files for visually display the file but lacks functionality, which we will be adding.

 


Davi Macedo

Instant GraphQL API on Back4App

After a lot of coffee and code, we are excited to announce the GraphQL support on Back4App!

Since version 3.5, Parse Server automatically provides a GraphQL API in addition to the REST API. Version 3.6 is already available as a beta at Back4App, and you can now enjoy a powerful, also instantly, generated GraphQL API, for your new or existing apps.


Natalia

How to make a ToDo List App with React Native, Expo and Back4App

React Native is one of the most popular frameworks used in mobile development. It was created by Facebook based on Javascript. It can be used to build apps to iOS or Android with native platform capabilities.

Expo is a tool that helps you speed up development time and testing.

This article explains how you can integrate a React Native app with Back4App. After completing this step-by-step tutorial, you will have built a project to manipulate a To-Do List.

Is it your first time using Back4App? If so, you need to do the Sign-Up.


George Batschinski

How to create an app and make money?

Details how to make a successful app

You got it! Do you want to do something big? Have an excellent idea for the next billion-dollar app?

How to create an app and make money?

This article will detail the lessons learned during my 13-year entrepreneur journey running a software development company and creating hundreds of mobile apps.

I will reveal the hidden secrets of how to bring your ideas to life. We will provide practical steps based on our own experience making mobile apps and share some tips that worked well for me.


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