Plans and custom domains

General
1

Hello,

I am a bit confused about your plans. On your Cloud 9 plans it says I can’t have “Multiple custom domains”, however the Springboard plan allows that.

What I want is to run a backend/frontend app on your platform, and having the actual website frontend be hosted on my domain (CNAME) without the banner that says this is built on a free plan. Can I do that with Cloud 9? (cloud 99 is too expensive and a no-goer for a small project like mine).

2

OK, just found out in one of your blogposts that “all Backendless apps have the ability to add a single custom domain for app hosting and API endpoints”.

It would be good to include that in your official pricing page, as this could be confusing.

3

Hello @Martin321

Banner

This page is served by Backendless - a visual app development platform. The page is a part of an application running on the free or trial Backendless plan. This banner is removed when you switch to one of the paid plans.

will be removed as soon as the application is on a paid plan (Cloud9 or Cloud99).

Regards,
Vladimir

4

Hello @Martin321 ,

From what I understand, you can subscribe to Cloud9 to use your own custom domain, but the problem is that you won’t have an SSL certificate. So it will be http and not https. This is very problematic because your application is therefore not secure (therefore unusable). From my point of view, no application should be deployed without an SSL certificate. The only option is to use Cloud99 to be able to benefit from the SSL certificate on your custom domain which immediately becomes more expensive.

For me, Cloud9 is only usable in two cases:

  • For a web application that uses a backendless subdomain (backendless subdomains automatically have an SSL certificate). Personally I prefer to avoid it because it looks less professional (the user sees the url indicating backendless.com in the search bar).
  • For a mobile application that uses the backendless API transparently for the user. So here we can use the backendless subdomain with https without looking less professional.

Cloud9 is affordable but it would be so much more interesting if it was possible to have an SSL certificate on a custom domain.

Anyway, the Backendless team is doing a great job. I can’t wait to see how their platform evolves.

Best regards

5

Cloud 9 doesn’t come with a “free” SSL certificate, but I’d imagine that we can purchase and add an ssl certificate ourselves if we wanted to use a Cloud 9 plan with a custom domain and an SSL certificate.

Can someone on the Backendless team please confirm whether or not an SSL certificate can be added to a Cloud 9 plan?

Much appreciated.

6

Hi, @eddie7

At this time, we are not considering adding a package to purchase an SSL certificate on the Cloud 9 plan. To get a certificate, you need to upgrade to the Cloud 99 plan.

Regards, Marina

7

Has this changed recently? I’m sure I saw an option on Cloud 9 to generate an SSL and send to you to apply to the domain.

Now I have switched to Cloud 99 as I need the custom domain, and it says you will generate it for me?

So now I don’t need to do anything else and SSL will be auto applied?

8

@Luc_Zentar, our engineer is already handling the certificate for your application. We will let you know when it is ready by email.

Regards, Marina

1 Like
9

Backendless no-code competitors like Bubble and Softr offer entry level tiers priced similarly to Cloud 9, but they come with an SSL certificate. That said, I can understand Backendless not offering a free SSL certificate on the entry level Cloud 9 plan, but why prevent us from purchasing and/or adding our own SSL certificate? By not allowing SSL you’re essentially handicapping any site/webapp powered by the Cloud 9 tier. SSL isn’t really a nice to have anymore…it’s a necessity.

  • Google penalizes you SEO wise if you don’t have an SSL certificate.

  • Browsers throw up security warnings to your site visitors of you don’t have an SSL certificate.

  • Selling any kind of product or service from your website (SaaS, Digital Product, E-commerce, whatever) is a no go if your site doesn’t have an SSL certificate.

  • As I understand it, running any kind of database driven site where the user has to login would be problematic without an SSL certificate because their login credentials would not be encrypted each time they log in.

  • Many companies have firewalls and other security measures that prevent their employees from using sites and web apps that don’t have an ssl certificate.

The lack of an SSL certificate essentially prevents any Cloud 9 app from being used as a production site/app. If I can’t really use a Could 9 site/app in production, then what’s the point of offering that pricing tier? From a practicality standpoint Backendless’ entry level tier is actually Cloud 99 at $149 per month…not Cloud 9 at $35 per month.

@mark-piller, what are your thoughts on this? Am I misunderstanding anything?

Much appreciated.

10

My thoughts are:

  1. For mobile apps built with UI Builder, the custom domain name is irrelevant.
  2. For apps that use Backendless as a backend, the custom domain in Backendless is irrelevant
  3. Web apps built with UI Builder that need to use a custom domain and thus need an SSL cert, there is absolutely nothing that stops you from deploying the built app and host it anywhere you like. Or to be precise anywhere you can get your custom domain and SSL cert.

To accomplish #3 simply zip up the directory where you publish your app and copy/unzip that file in another other hosting solution.

Regards,
Mark

1 Like
11

Thanks, @mark-piller.

In reality I’d just keep it all in Backendless and pay the $149 per month, but I am curious as to how option 3 would actually work.

For example, say I build a frontend with UI builder that does some things with the Backendless backend…saves some data to the database, allows for some querying of the database, etc. Then I zip up the directory and copy/unizip it to some other hosting solution. So now the frontend is hosted elsewhere, but the backend database (and maybe some backend logic) is still on Backendless. Will the frontend that I zipped up and hosted elsewhere still work with the Backendless backend…or will the “connections” between the frontend and the backend be broken?

12

It will continue to work. Unlike bubble, the Backendless database is accessible through the APIs which are available regardless of where the UI is hosted.

1 Like
13

This thread got me thinking about how locked in Backendless users are or aren’t (obviously Bubble users are pretty much completely locked in).

In regards to option 3; when zipping up the directory, what is zipped up exactly? Is it just regular html, css and js files…or is it a React app?

Also, I had noticed that when creating backend logic in Backlendless/Cloud Code/Codeless that I can see the actual code that Codeless generates (very cool). I assume that the code is basically structured as serverless functions. If so, then can those serverless functions generated by Codeless be exported and then deployed on other serverless platforms like AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, etc?

14

Hello @eddie7

Is it just regular html, css and js files…or is it a React app?

It is a React app.
React app consists of HTML, CSS, ad JS files.
When zipping up the directory the files are archived in a .zip archive. The archive will be in the previous directory. You can use your app anywhere. Entry to your app will be the path to index.js.

I assume that the code is basically structured as serverless functions. If so, then can those serverless functions generated by Codeless be exported and then deployed on other serverless platforms like AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, etc?

We don’t have any service for export codeless logic to another service. But you can do it manually.
The code in codeless is JavaScript. For API logic codeless using API methods from Backendless JS SDK. If you connect the Backendless JS SDK to the workspace the code will be valid and should work

Regards,
Viktor

1 Like
15

Thanks, @viktor.liablin. Very helpful.

What about when I export an iOS app or an Android app that I’ve built with Backendless UI Builder? What kind of app is that…is it a React Native app or something else?

16

@eddie7

It is not an iOS app or Android app it is React app.
You can not export the Android or iOS app.
You can export a React app and convert it with some services. But we don’t have a service for it.

1 Like
17

If you’re looking for an option to run a UI Builder app in a mobile environment, there are two options:

  1. Backendless Viewer: Backendless Viewer - Your UI Builder App Live On Mobile | Backendless
  2. Native app shell: Introducing the Backendless Native Mobile App Flutter Shell

Regards,
Mark

1 Like