With Parse retiring its service, many developers are wondering how to find a tool they can trust for the long haul.
Recently, the news broke that Parse is winding down. A great many developers who relied on Parse for their products and their livelihood now face the unpleasant task of having to migrate their data and move on to something new. For some, this probably isn’t the first time this has happened either, as developer tools that were once trendy have now faded away.
Parse was owned by a huge and popular company in Facebook, giving it the appearance of being both cool and stable, which is part of what makes this all such a shock. But Facebook, at its core, doesn’t build developer tools. That’s not their business model, and it never has been. Facebook is very successful at what they do—serving ads—and when Parse no longer contributed to that goal, they were under no obligation to maintain it.
While pretty new tools from fun brands may have a lot of appeal, sometimes you have to think about the larger philosophy behind it all. At a company whose business model revolves around serving you, the developers, their heart and soul will be poured into their tools. If one isn’t living up to your needs, they won’t throw it away, they’ll fix it. And because it’s a tool for you, they’ll fix it to your specifications, not theirs.
You need to pick an organization whose highest goal is to earn your trust and help you succeed, because they will only win when you win too. Companies like that won’t abandon their dev tools because at their core, they’re dev tool building companies—and they’re in it for the long haul.
If you were building on Parse, we can help you migrate your work over to our tools, providing guidance and helping you pick up where you left off. As a company that lives for our developers, we pride ourselves on the support we give every step of the way—no matter what you’re developing or what framework you’re using.
If you’re looking for a stable platform that will be here as long as you are, we hope you’ll give tools like the Telerik Platform and NativeScript a serious look. We’re toolmakers and developers, and we’re incredibly honored to deliver tools used by developers across the world. Don’t get too sucked into the latest shiny thing, and when it comes to your business, stick with someone you can count on standing by you.
Burke Holland is a web developer living in Nashville, TN and was the Director of Developer Relations at Progress. He enjoys working with and meeting developers who are building mobile apps with jQuery / HTML5 and loves to hack on social API's. Burke worked for Progress as a Developer Advocate focusing on Kendo UI.