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Choosing your Parse Server provider could be important decision, if you’ve decided to go with a third party solution. A lot of new companies and providers came on the market during the last year, which is awesome, because you have more options to choose from. This also creates competition which pushes providers to improve the quality of the service and to give better terms in order to gain more customers. On the other hand you may feel confused - everybody promises good conditions and service, but what are the “must-haves” of your new partner? We want to help you out a bit and that’s why we have prepared a list of things we believe a good Parse Server provider needs to have.

• Auto scaling - you probably know the number of users and your regular traffic each month, but let’s imagine you are launching a marketing campaign or some other event that requires escalated data transfer or more push notifications than usually. You need to be sure that your new provider is capable of handling this traffic at any time. Auto scaling is one of the essential concepts in Cloud computing, because it provides the flexibility to automatically add or cut out compute resources based on the actual usage of your applications. You benefit in every way - you pay for what you’ve used and most importantly: don’t have to worry if your apps can handle an unexpected traffic.

• Multi region - make sure your provider covers as many regions as possible or at least plans to do so. This is important in many aspects - the distance between your server location and your app’s users may affect the speed and no one wants slow loading of data. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) considers server location as a factor when trying to check if your web app or website is relevant for a certain country or language market.

• No Vendor Lock-in - our advice is to double check this, because you need to make sure you’ll be able to migrate your apps away at any time without problems. You should feel satisfied with the service and the provider and this should be the reason that you don’t leave, not because they don’t let you do it.

• Good 24/7 support - it’s crucial to be able to get expert assistance and to know your new provider can help you if you experience any troubles.

• Reasonable pricing - of course we talk about business and this is an important aspect, so feel free to compare what you’ll receive for your payment. Still have in mind that choosing the lowest price is not always the best solution, because you may miss some important features or good support etc.

• Check the provider’s background - we mean not only comments of other users, whо already used the service, but get to know the company a little better - are they on the market for some time now, what is their core business, do they have experience with Cloud hosting, who are the people behind it? Years of experience in the field sounds much more promising and reliably.

• Vision for the future - it’s good to know your provider has plans for the future beyond just hosting the Parse Server. As developers we all like to dream big and it’s the best to know you have access to the most innovating technologies. Try to find if they are contributing in some way to the improvement of the Parse Server or just ask them if they have any bigger plans. If they do - they’ll be more than excited to share with you.

We know it’s hard to pin your faith upon a new provider and to allocate your applications in their hands after Parse has shaken the trust in MBaaS as industry. But the benefits and convenience of using a third party provider definitely worth the risk. Just follow our tips and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and nerves, spent on switching from one service to another. We’d love to hear what’s important for you when you look for a new Parse Server provider. Share with us your opinion!

In the meantime: Happy coding :)