There’s no doubt that software development is a complex process with lots of pitfalls and tricky details. With the rising trend of digitalization, more and more businesses tend to create their own software. To simplify the development process, companies create special tools that help engineers to do their job faster.
There’s a big number of services that offer turn-key solutions for developers. In this guide, we’ll explain how to speed up backend development with BaaS software and what benefits you get from it.
The concept of BaaS
In plain language, BaaS solutions assist in code writing and maintenance of the server logic. With this type of solution, you don’t need to hire dozens of skilled specialists to create and test your backend. The service does everything for you.
App design, user interaction, and database structure are crucial for almost every software, but they are worth nothing without well-built business logic. It’s hard to predict the time that developers will spend on business logic. Backend development may take up to 50% of the overall development time, depending on the software’s complexity. Backend-as-a-Service is an alternative solution that doesn’t require you to build the logic from scratch.
BaaS benefits. What does it offer to your app?
As it was mentioned earlier, the main benefit of BaaS solutions is a decrease in development time. According to Statista, backend engineers work with APIs most frequently among all software specialists. One of the reasons for this is the convenience that BaaS APIs bring to software development. Backend and data processing algorithms can be built faster and cheaper. Besides, BaaS solutions contain a lot of features that may be useful in different cases. Cloud storage for cloud app development, social media integration for additional login options, push notifications, and so on. These features can be accessed and integrated into your software via the platforms’ API.
BaaS takes the workload off the developers and handles tasks like managing physical servers, databases, creating API design, client-server libraries, and so on.
Cost-effectiveness
When businesses create a complex application with a lot of features, it’s important to get a professional tech consultation and hire experienced developers. As you understand, software development services aren’t cheap. Moreover, after the development, you might need to test the app in the cloud, which also requires hiring specialists.
Baas offers a great alternative. It helps you avoid all development-related expenses by just paying for the BaaS solution itself. It takes care of all backend and server issues. Depending on your needs, you may pay for additional features for your software.
Time effectiveness
Today, all companies are thinking of diving into the digital field. If your competitors don’t have their own app now, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t working on it at the moment. The faster you launch the app, the more users you’ll attract to your software.
BaaS helps you reduce development time significantly by automating a number of backend-related processes. While your competitors will be creating the software architecture, you’ll successfully occupy a niche with your app and get profits earlier. Later on, if your app will satisfy all customers’ needs, clients won’t search for alternatives and will stay with your software for long.
Cross-platform support
BaaS solutions support all popular mobile platforms. That means you don’t have to rewrite the code for Android and iOS separately. Just do it once, and you’ll be good to go. Besides, with a little effort, you can shift your mobile backend for a web-based app. BaaS providers offer native SDKs for various platforms, so the overall app performance doesn’t deteriorate.
Updates
Mobile updates are meant to fix bugs and make improvements to hold customers’ interest in the software. However, each update often leads to new bugs and painful integration of new features into an old code. Backend-as-a-Service solutions, in their turn, help developers to integrate new features seamlessly. The architecture of BaaS solutions implies continuous software upgrades. That’s why many developers like to work with BaaS solutions.
Security standards
When creating an app, user data safety should be the top priority of any app developer. Data leaks may lead to large fines and criminal liability. However, BaaS solutions can assist you with this issue. BaaS solutions provide a high level of security. Users can’t access any sensitive information on the server directly.
Problems may arise when you need to switch one vendor to another. But even in this case, BaaS vendors export all data via a so-called management console to transfer the data between two services.
BaaS drawbacks, points to watch out
Even though BaaS solutions seem like a great offer, they also have its price to pay. The main issue of this development option is vendors’ stability. No, we’re not talking about the performance. We’re talking about the vendors’ company. One day, the company may just collapse, and the services you’ve paid for won’t be available. You can switch to another provider in such a case, but it may lead to additional expenses, enormous software downtime, and difficulties with software development.
The reason is that all vendors use their own APIs. There’s no uniform standard for all companies. That’s why every vendor provides custom APIs. If your developers worked with a previous library for several years, they need time to learn a new one. If you need to switch fast, most likely, you’ll have to hire additional developers to supplement your core team.
To avoid such unpleasant situations, you need to conduct detailed research about the BaaS vendor. How many clients does he have, how long does the company exist, what’s the API quality, and what features does the vendor provide. Such will help you to find a trustworthy BaaS vendor that won’t let you down in the future.
Wrapping Up
To sum up, BaaS solutions are an innovative approach to software development. They bring a lot of benefits to entrepreneurs that want to digitize their businesses. Cost-effectiveness and a wealth of various features will play at your hands. However, don’t forget to conduct a detailed research to find a trustworthy BaaS vendor.
Author’s bio
Vitaly Kuprenko is a writer for Cleveroad. It’s a web and mobile app development company with headquarters in Ukraine. He enjoys writing about technology and digital marketing.
If you want to write a Guest Post, you can contact me via email ( DavidMM1707@gmail.com ) or Twitter ( DavidMM1707 )
