Dropbox Datastore API Alternatives

[Clifton L.]

I'm sure you've all heard Dropbox's news that they will be deprecating the Datastore API. I'm curious to know what everyone is going to move over to.

I originally chose the Datastore API for a few reasons:

• It can gracefully handle large datasets (my users have thousands of records each)
• Importing lots of data is very fast (thousands of records in less than 10 seconds; doing the same thing on Parse takes ~25 minutes).
• Dropbox is well known and trusted by many

I am currently considering a few other options, but I'd love to hear what you all are looking to do.

1. Firebase - firebase.com - This seems to be the most similar to the Datastore API so far. Developers claim it performs really well with large datasets. The downside is that it costs money for more concurrent connections (but the prices are reasonable).

2. Couchbase - couchbase.com - This is open source and seems pretty good. The downside is having to get your own server environment up and running.

3. Helios - helios.io - This seems to provide a lot of flexibility, but you have to do some of your own back-end setup, and it doesn't seem to provide an object-base sync interface. Instead, you have to use Core Data and its REST API.

4. Parse - parse.com - There is a lot to like about this option, and it can handle large datasets, but doing basic database operations like importing data and summing the numbers in a column is surprisingly difficult (for me, at least).

Anyone else found an alternative they like?

Good luck with your BaaS migration. 😕

[Claire R.1]

Did anyone successfully migrate their app to another service?

I gave a try to Parse local datastore, but did not find it reliable (issues similar to this https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/parse-developers/LkBDQ-UHkR0).

Does anyone have feedback about Firebase?

[Clifton L.]

Since posting this, I have migrated my app to Parse, and overall I'm really pleased. I have had to get used to my app being more reliant on a network connection, but that's a pretty common requirement nowadays anyway.

I recommend looking at Parse. They have lots of great dev tools and there is plenty of community support.

[Denis B.]

Hi Claire,

I managed to move to Firebase and I am absolutely loving the service. I have few users making many requests which would make Parse very expensive for me, plus Firebase style synchronisation works really well for me. The only downside is that it is rather difficult to store larger files such as images.

[Claire R.1]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Are you using the local datastore (https://parse.com/docs/ios/guide#local-datastore)? Or maybe you did not need to use it since your app is being more reliant on a network connection now?

[Clifton L.]

I looked into the local datastore but decided to not use it (for now). It's not like Dropbox's in that you have access to all your data while offline. Parse's approach is more like where you can temporarily "pin" some data to be saved once you get back online. It's not meant for extended offline use with full app functionality available (unless you don't have very much data). My users have thousands of records, so offline data isn't really feasible.

But that's exactly the reason why I used and loved Dropbox's Datastore. It's a beautiful architecture and I'm still sad that it's going away. 😞

[Claire R.1]

 @Denis Great to know that Firebase is working well for you. I will have a look at it too.

[Claire R.1]

@Clifton thanks for the clarification. Maybe what I need to do is rethink my app and stop thinking "offline-1st". That's too bad, Dropbox datastore was working really really well for this app :\.

[Denis B.]

My pleasure, hope it helps, just wanted to let you know that I am storing all data offline too. While I do not know of a working Firebase API for this, I simply keep a local copy of all data and the whole app works on this local copy. If changes are being synced from the cloud I simply update the local copy and then reload the corresponding view taking its data from the local copy. Would that not work for you?

[Claire R.1]

Indeed this could work for me too. Also the advantage of having a local copy would be having again the goodness of sqlite or CoreData queries (which IMO was the only drawback in Dropbox Datastore).

[Raheel S.]

One big reason I used dropbox service: I have no idea about how to setup anything server side. 

Any links to a tutorial setting up parse and make it more datastores-y would be greatly appreciated.