Companies developing mobile apps have their tasks cut out through a seamless and labor-friendly service that uses cloud technology to lower the hassles of their mobile app developers significantly. With Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS), developers won’t need to spend excessive time and effort developing an application’s backend services.
Companies can utilize resources better and become more efficient and economical in developing mobile apps. Step away from the laborious tasks and focus on the core functionalities instead of fussing about the infrastructure. Get all the tools you need in one place to build and deploy apps fast – irrespective of the OS. So, what is Mobile Backend as a Service all about? Let’s find out.
Why MBaas came into existence?
MBaaS came into existence to meet the mounting demand for quality mobile apps, built in the least amount of time, without compromising on performance and data security. Since incorporating individual features such as push notifications, cloud storage, location, mapping, orchestration, etc., each with its own API made the entire process time-consuming and complicated.
This led to the development of the MBaaS model, which provided a consistent way to manage the backend data. Developers didn’t need to redevelop their own backend for each service their apps accessed. MBaaS specifically solved the cloud-computing needs by providing a unified means of connecting the mobile apps to the cloud services.
MBaaS was born to facilitate sophisticated mobile app solutions in a reasonable time. MBaaS allowed developers to take advantage of the latest features and manage complex service commands to deliver rich user experiences. Instead of having to deal with tedious backend infrastructure.
Why Use Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) in 2022
Top reasons to rely on MBaaS for all your mobile app development needs:
Saves time spent in mundane tasks:
The app development team spends less time on wasteful activities, such as managing databases, developing APIs, and handling servers. Using MBaaS, they can instead focus more time on developing new features, working on client-side logic, and improving the interface to deliver a high-grade user experience.
Improves time to market:
Time wasted in building the backend delays your time to launch. MBaaS makes sure the crucial time of your developers is used to develop what matters without engaging with the backend development, thereby reducing the time and gaining a competitive advantage.
Increases productivity of developers:
Developers get more done in lesser time. Not needing to work out the backend activities allow them to get the essential things out of the way quicker. In fact, developers can focus on providing more business value to customers. The backend technology manages the entire server infrastructure and handles all the coding behind your app.
Economical app development:
Relying on MBaaS reduces the development costs, making the entire mobile app development process more affordable. Lowering the time by elevating the efficiency translates into incremental savings in the project. You would likely need fewer developers, reducing the cost per head, leading to reduced expenses that reflect on your bottom line.
Much easier to scale:
Your business will not struggle with growing customers and transactions. The MBaaS environment allocates features that make it easier to scale your app, retain performance, guarantee top-tier user experience, manage the additional load, and keep up with the growth. No need to go for a full rebuild of the backend to sustain the app’s surge and fluctuations.
How Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) Works?
MBaaS acts as a bridge between the front-end of an application and various cloud-based backends via unified Application Programming Interfaces (API) and custom software development kits (SDK). MBaaS provides seamless access to prebuilt services to streamline all the repetitive tasks. It serves as a perfect model to link the apps to backend APIs and cloud storage.
MBaaS services utilize custom SDKs. This helps developers connect their API endpoints to various frontend clients such as Android and iOS apps, built with any technology capable of producing a mobile app, such as Flutter, Unity, ReactNative, Ionic, and more. App owners don’t need to mess around with backend operations, like software updates, backups, scaling services, and more.
The software within MBaaS lets you utilize the “ready to use events” that your mobile app needs from the server backend. You can easily integrate the available services into the mobile apps with no or low code options. When using an MBaaS vendor for development, developers focus only on building the frontend UI while the vendor manages the backend administration.
Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) vs. Backend as a Service (BaaS)
Typically, both BaaS and MBaaS offer similar services and therefore find synonymous usage in some places. Both assist in providing cloud support for app development. However, MBaaS is more specifically meant for mobile apps, whereas BaaS concerns web-based apps. But, BaaS services don’t necessarily have to be used for developing mobile applications,
This is what separates BaaS from MBaaS. BaaS is the more traditional Backend as a Service, whereas MBaaS refers to Mobile Backend as a Service. The use of mobile indicates that the system is more oriented towards mobile. Otherwise, there is no real difference in functionalities, and both services are intended to provide 360-degree support for app development.
In both instances, while developing an app, your business will extend the responsibilities of maintaining and running the servers to a 3rd party and focus your time and labor on the frontend or client-side development. This allows you to speed up the development process with scalable databases, file storage, cloud code functions APIs, and other features.
Top 3 Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS) Platforms in 2022
1. Firebase:
Firebase comes with a real-time database, cloud storage, Test lab, Firebase ML with 1000 cloud API calls/month at no extra cost, and a good amount of storage. Furthermore, it offers low data transfer charges, several cloud functions, and other functionalities that make it easy to build, support, and grow mobile apps. The Firebase No-cost Spark Plan doesn’t cost a dime but imposes generous limits.
Whereas the Pay as you go Blaze Plan has varying costs. In both the plans, you get A/B Testing, Analytics, In-App Messaging, Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring, Remote Config, Dynamic Links, App Distribution, and App Indexing at no cost. Authentication in the free plan goes as far as 10k/month and on the paid plan ranges from $0.01 – $0.06. Everything else varies as per the plan.
2. AWS Amplify:
Developers can use Amplify CLI or Amplify Studio to configure the backend of an app and use the UI components and Amplify libraries to connect the app to the backend. Use Amplify Hosting to host your front-end web app and create backend environments. Amplify features User management and Content management to manage authenticated users and update the app data.
Use “Analytics” to review user behavior, access real-time data, and analyze the same. Plus, use “Geo” to add location features, “Predictions” to add AI/ML capabilities, “PubSub” to exchange messages between your app’s backend and app instances, “Storage” to manage user-generated content, and other features to facilitate social media login authentication and chatbot interactions.
AWS Amplify has 2 pricing models. The Static Web Hosting – Free Tier plan offers 1000 build minutes per month, with the hosting limited to 5 GB stored per month and 15 GB served per month. The Static Web Hosting – Pay-as-you-go plan charges $0.01 per build minute, while the hosting comes to $0.023 per GB stored per month and $0.15 per GB served.
3. Backendless:
Backendless offers dozens of features to help achieve your app-building goals. Backendless allows frequent backups, multiple developer onboarding and ensures optimum security with an SSL certificate. Plus, get custom security roles, custom API Keys, high real-time connections, high operations in Transactions, email templates, low code execution time, and an ability to increase limits.
Owners can increase or remove limits on paid plans by purchasing a corresponding function pack from the Marketplace. Backendless springboard starts at $0/month and offers 200 database tables, unlimited push notifications, and unlimited API calls/month. Backendless Cloud 9 is priced at $35/month and offers 10,000,000 API calls/month with 100 database tables and 500,000 push notifications.
Backendless Cloud 99 is priced at $149/month and offers 40,000,000 API calls/month with 200 database tables and unlimited push notifications. Both Cloud 9 and Cloud 99 offer flexible limits and super scaling per application. You can also avail the 14-day free trial of the Cloud 99 plan.
Conclusion
Empower developers and start relying on MBaaS to build your mobile apps seamlessly. Don’t let the manual backend management become a bottleneck in your mobile app development process. Instead, evaluate a service that will free you up from this hassle, best fit your needs and budget, and help you realize a powerful mobile app at the earliest.
To know which MBaaS provider serves your requirements best, contact the mobile app development experts. Our expert consultants and strategists have a sound holistic knowledge of MBaaS platforms and will help you finalize the one that syncs best with your business specifics. We can even help you migrate to another MBaaS platform with ease.
By: admin