Hello!
I am excited about the recent announcement about Backendless Pro Community Edition, and I have a few of questions about it.
I see that there are presently tutorial videos for setting up Backendless Pro CE with three different virtual machine web hosting providers (DigitalOcean, AWS, Azure). And I see that there will be “more coming soon”. Are you able to confirm if a tutorial is planned for setting up with Hostinger VPS?
I see that a “Backendless Pro trial license” is required for setting this up. Further down the page it is stated: “We will offer a free, perpetual license for the platform’s Community Edition.” I just want to make sure: Can I interpret this to mean that Pro CE is free, and will remain free for the foreseeable future? (Support being separate, of course.)
Does Backendless Pro CE offer better protection than Backendless Cloud against unexpected costs that could arise from DDoS attacks? I am aware that Scale Plan Tier Thresholds can be set to limit API requests, if using Cloud. Does having control of the virtual server settings allow for the implementation of additional protections? I would want to deny abnormal / potentially malicious API requests and site traffic if possible.
I see that there are tutorial videos for setting up Backendless Pro CE with three different virtual machine hosting providers (DigitalOcean, AWS, Azure). I also noticed that more are “coming soon.” Can you confirm if a tutorial is planned for Hostinger VPS?
For setting up with Hostinger, you can follow the general instructions for Ubuntu setup here: Ubuntu Installation Guide.
I see that a “Backendless Pro trial license” is required for this setup. On this page, it mentions, “We will offer a free, perpetual license for the platform’s Community Edition.” Could you clarify if Pro CE is free and will remain so indefinitely? (Of course, support is separate.)
Yes, Pro CE is indeed free indefinitely. However, it does not include official support or upgrades.
Does Backendless Pro CE offer better protection than Backendless Cloud against unexpected costs from potential DDoS attacks? I understand that in the Cloud environment, Scale Plan Tier Thresholds can limit API requests. With Pro CE, does having control over the virtual server settings allow implementing additional security measures? My aim is to restrict any unusual or potentially malicious API requests and site traffic, if possible.
Backendless Pro CE doesn’t have API call limits from our side; the only limitations come from your machine’s resources (CPU, memory, and disk space). We provide the Backendless platform itself, and handling security, backups, and additional safeguards would be up to you. Soon, some products will also be available through the Backendless Marketplace, which may be helpful for your needs.
I see. So I would only need to be concerned with the costs of the hosting plan.
Backups, I know can be done manually of the entire Backendless app (I recall this from the tutorials). I think I can do without automated backups, at least in the early stages.
“Handling security” is a broad area of responsibility. Could you give a brief overview of which aspects of security I would need to manage (versus those aspects that the hosting company would be managing)?
“Handling security” is a broad area of responsibility. Could you give a brief overview of which aspects of security I would need to manage versus those the hosting company would handle?
You’re correct that “handling security” covers a wide range of responsibilities. Generally, you would need to manage elements such as SSH access, firewall rules, and port accessibility. The hosting company typically manages the security of the infrastructure itself, including physical data center security, hardware maintenance, and network-level protections.
If you need a more tailored security strategy for your specific setup, you could purchase support hours, and our team can help assess and address your particular security requirements.
These examples sound like matters that are pretty universal, and would probably come into play whether the site is powered by Backendless or not. That feels somewhat reassuring, like maybe I could do it looking things up as I go along. But it’s not very reassuring.
Is your support hours pricing listed on your site somewhere?
The main appeal of Backendless is not needing deep knowledge of backend database and server configuration matters. So I guess whether Pro CE will make sense for me will come down to whether setup and maintenance requires a high level of expertise or not.
In any case, I appreciate you taking the time to answer. I will research a little more about SSH, firewalls, and port config basics. I hope Backendless Pro CE can be a practical solution for me.
Currently, we don’t have a dedicated page listing support hours pricing. However, we plan to introduce a more streamlined way for purchasing support hours in the future. In the meantime, you can reach out to our team at sales@backendless.com to request a quote.