2021

Status update - Para goes global, pricing changes

Our backend-as-a-service (BaaS) Para continued to grow over the past few months and now it’s hosting over 450 active apps. We have about 10 paid customers from different parts of the globe - USA, Japan, Europe. Previously, the hosted Para service was available from a single AWS region - Ireland, EU. This meant that clients connecting from another continent would experience high latency for all requests to the backend, which would make Para applications feel slow. It was time to address this problem.

2020

Mar 22

Status update - Python client, Scoold API, integrations and more

Over the past year or so we’ve added a number of new features and integrations to Scoold and Para. In particular, Scoold has received hundreds of bug fixes and dozens of pull requests on GitHub. The community has been quite active with feature requests and suggestions. We’re also happy to report that profits from Scoold Pro are increasing and we’re proud to have several large clients, like Cisco, IBM and DBS Bank, who have successfully deployed it in production.

2019

Aug 14

Building a full stack application from scratch with React

Note: This article is a clone of another one written for Angular.

In this tutorial we’re going to build a simple single-page application with React (v16 and above). This is intended for developers unfamiliar with the new framework or having some experience with React. First of all, I got Visual Studio Code installed on my machine and it’s running on Linux. I chose VS Code because we’ll be working with JavaScript and JSX and it has great support for those, but you can code in your favourite IDE as well. The code project for this article was generated with create-react-app, a scaffolding tool for React. You’ll also need to have Git, Node.js and npm installed.

Jul 4

Webhooks implemented in Para and Scoold

With the release of Para 1.32.0 we’ve introduced support for webhooks for all apps. This feature is available now on ParaIO.com as well. This is very good news for everyone who wants to integrate Para with external services. It makes Para even more flexible and enables you to have near real-time notifications for events like create, update and delete for any object type you choose.

Jan 28

Status update - containers, Java 11 and more

Over the past couple of months we’ve been busy maintaining Para and Scoold and a few patches have been released. The changes are minor and are mostly related to dependency upgrades. A few minor bugs have been fixed as well. Scoold has received some much welcome pull requests with translations from our awesome contributors. It is now available in 12 different languages!

2016

Aug 12

An open source backend for the Internet of Things

Things — those small, connected devices are now part of our daily lives. As we transition our focus from mobile to broader IoT development, the need for reliable and open source backend systems increases. There are so many applications for IoT — smart thermostats, air conditioning controllers, DIY home automation systems based on Raspberry Pi and Arduino, to name a few. We were planning to add IoT support to Para for a while now but it was only after a fellow developer’s suggestion that we realized we should’ve done this sooner.

Jun 9

Building a full stack application from scratch with Angular

UPDATE: This article and its associated code have been updated for Angular 8.x. The same article is also available for React.

In this tutorial we’re going to build a simple single-page application with Angular (v8 and above). This is intended for developers unfamiliar with the new framework or having some experience with AngularJS. First of all, I got Visual Studio Code installed on my machine and it’s running on Linux. I chose VS Code because we’ll be working with TypeScript mostly and it has great support for it, but you can code in your favourite IDE as well. Originally, the code in this article was based on the excellent Angular 2 Seed project by Minko Gechev That project is now deprecated in favor of Angular CLI and the code here has been migrated to use the new official build tool for Angular. You’ll also need to have Git, Node.js and npm installed.

Jun 1

jPrime roundup, Para client for iOS and Swift

Last week was jPrime 2016, the biggest Java conference on the Balkans. It was a huge success — more than 500 visitors, two tracks in two days. The slogan was “Java - 21 and legally drunk” and the two main themes were microservices and reactive programming with RxJava. This was the second year in a row for the conference which is organized by the community, i.e. fellow Java developers from the BGJUG. By being silver sponsors, we made a humble contribution which helped the community organize this great event.

Mar 25

Para Web Console - the admin UI for your backend

We’ve released a simple web management console for Para. It’s open source, client-side only and lets you connect to any of your Para servers and manage your objects easily through the web interface. It’s powered by AngularJS and uses the great libraries ng-admin and Restangular. The console works for both local and remotely deployed servers and you are more than welcome to modify it for your needs. We’d appreciate any pull requests on GitHub.

Mar 6

Para v1.18 released, new site and jPrime

This past month was interesting and quite busy for us - we got valuable feedback and contributions from our clients, fixed many bugs, released the Android client for Para and a new plugin for MongoDB. The number one request for this version was support for plugins and MongoDB. We’ve also updated the documentation of our open source backend framework and redesigned the landing page on paraio.org. The docs should now look even better on mobile devices with high-DPI displays.