StayShure is an expert Bubble agency and Backendless Partner that provides web and mobile app development services to clients. When the company needed more traditional database functionality and better data processing speed for a new project, they turned to Backendless.
StayShure, an expert Bubble agency and Backendless Partner, was frustrated by the inability of Bubble’s built-in backend to process complex data. Needing a powerful backend and database to bolster their clients’ apps, they turned to Backendless, marrying two leading no-code platforms in an innovative way.
According to Nathan Tymos, CTO at StayShure, typically the app development company has been able to combine comprehensive planning and clever workarounds to accomplish what their clients need using Bubble’s existing ecosystem.
“We’re one of the top agencies in the world with [Bubble] and a lot of our devs have come to us from other agencies saying, ‘you guys do stuff with Bubble that no one else even thinks is possible.’”
– Nathan Tymos, CTO @ StayShure
For one project, however, Bubble’s inability to process complex data simply presented too great a challenge to overcome with the platform alone.
For the SUMS project, a startup providing investor-founder relations in the venture capital world, Bubble’s database simply could not handle the quantity and complexity of data that the application would be presenting.
“Bubble’s our primary front end platform, and they do a decent job with backend. But when you’re dealing with more query-based data structures that are not just tied to a user but tied to a different data type, Bubble would start to choke when you were trying to run analytics or run any kind of complex queries on that.”
Additionally, Bubble’s limitation to US-based cloud hosting would be a long-term barrier, as the application itself would need to service Canadian users and comply with Canadian data privacy laws, which require data storage on Canadian soil.
At first, StayShure tried to connect Backendless and Bubble purely through APIs. While both platforms are very much designed to thrive on this form of interface, the Bubble backend “ground to a halt while trying to present the data being provided by Backendless.”
“[A]t first, it was like ‘Hey, these APIs work great.’ And then we’re like, ‘Ah, performance issue is on the back, on the Bubble side. Let’s reimagine this.’”
The StayShure team then decided to take advantage of Backendless’ ability to use JavaScript to design Cloud Code functions. They effectively created their own database connections that work adjacent to Bubble’s frontend.
Before choosing Backendless, StayShure explored other options, but found that the SQL-like functionality of Backendless was the best fit for their needs.
“Because of the SQL-type feel of Backendless, we were able to marry those two [analytics and data queries] together, and essentially have real time queries on multiple tables summarized up in a way that was used for us to represent that data into the Bubble ecosystem.”
The company also appreciated the active community and helpful support from the Backendless support team.
“Having [Backendless CEO] Mark [Piller] and others able to jump in on stuff right away has been really helpful, and so we kind of did a community audit as well before we jumped into it. ‘No, there’s active members on this, there’s people involved,’ and so we felt decently comfortable working through that.”
Facing the upcoming hurdle of ensuring that the SUMS application’s data was hosted in Canada, Backendless’ Pro and Managed products presented an ideal solution. Both Backendless Pro and Managed Backendless can be deployed on the customers’ servers anywhere in the world.
“…because we’re a Canadian company and a lot of our projects are in Canada, the privacy laws in Canada require certain types of information to be stored on Canadian soil. So the fact that we can deploy Backendless servers on the AWS cloud and control where they are makes it ideal for us because Bubble just doesn’t let us do that.”
StayShure’s choice to use Backendless for the backend and database for their SUMS app was a game-changer. By using Backendless’ real-time database capabilities and JavaScript to establish the connection, the result was a massive improvement in speed.
“The fact that [Backendless is] so API friendly and also has a JavaScript connector built into it gives us the ability to bring its data into any space we want to … [W]e’re loading entire tables in milliseconds of data with the Backendless database connector, and we’re even going as far as, say, ‘let’s use the real time connector so that when the data changes, it updates automatically.’ And so that’s the exciting part about it. It kind of solves the database system, and it solves the database pain point in no code and not just puts a Band-Aid on it, but really defines how it should work going forward.”
Ultimately, the decision to integrate Backendless and Bubble has opened up many possibilities for StayShure to develop a wide range of applications.
“The fact that we can actually have an SQL database type structure with relations that aren’t convoluted in the Bubble world accessible in Bubble is phenomenal.”
Overall, StayShure has been pleased with the performance and functionality of Backendless, and has been able to provide better solutions for their clients as a result. The company anticipates using Backendless in any future projects that have significant data processing requirements.
“The fact that we can have that code engine tied in with our database to be able to bring data in, process it through logic and then bring that over to either a persistent state or non-persistent state to get to Bubble is going to save us a lot of time in those projects.”