
Ask HN: Need advice for an API building product - ruslan_talpa
Hi, I am the founder of Sub0 - GraphQL and REST API for your database (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphqlapi.com)
It&#x27;s a piece of software that your run on your server and it will generate and expose a GraphQL and REST API by introspecting your database schema.<p>Like most developers I am more comfortable with technical issues then with sales and marketing but as a founder I need to figure out this part too.
I would be very grateful if you could give me feedback on the following topics.<p>- What would be your expectations when it comes to licensing and pricing of such a tool?<p>- Which of the flowing 4 messages resonates more with you as a developer?<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphqlapi.com&#x2F;dont-waste-time&#x2F; http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphqlapi.com&#x2F;graphql&#x2F; http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphqlapi.com&#x2F;postgrest&#x2F; http:&#x2F;&#x2F;graphqlapi.com&#x2F;your-data&#x2F;<p>The tool currently is in private beta but anyone is welcome to request an invite if you are interested in trying it out.
Although this is more of a sales&#x2F;marketing thread, i am happy to answer any technical questions you might have here.<p>Thank you
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areed
[http://graphqlapi.com/your-data/](http://graphqlapi.com/your-data/) is the
best of the 4

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ruslan_talpa
Thank you for taking the time. Any feedback/expectations for licensing model,
price range?

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samblr
1 and 4 makes sense. Ok it provides an api ? is it like parse or BaaS - what
does end user get - backend with apis,frontend ? Or how is it different to
Kinvey who are in similar space.

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samblr
I am interested in trying out - my email is in profile about @gmail

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ruslan_talpa
Oh, i see you already did, nevermind :)

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samblr
Thank you. 've got the invite - Im facing issue with cloning repo. Have pinged
on slack.

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AznHisoka
I may not understand your product but isnt an ORM already an api for your
database? with ruby for example, all i need to do is Object.where(id = 1) to
get a specific record out.

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ruslan_talpa
Thank you for the feedback, these kind of questions do help to zoom in on the
correct message.

When i say API, i am referring to "curl
[http://api.site.com/object/1"](http://api.site.com/object/1") type of api,
the kind you expose to the web where other developers can use to access the
data in your backend/database, or even your frontend/mobile app talking to
your backend through this API.

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AznHisoka
A lot of basic db operations is basically built into rails scaffolding though.
for instance /object/1 automatically gives u id 1 back without any extra
coding.

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ruslan_talpa
I get what you are saying but even to get that you had to (manually) define
your model and it's fields and relations and that is only the most basic thing
you can ask of an api, but how about the following tasks: requesting a subset
of objects using a few filters, requesting only specific properties of
objects, specifying what users can and can not access info about those
objects, making sure garbage does not get into the database (input
validation).

All these things have to be manually solved by you in your controllers, there
is no scaffolding for that, while in Sub0 all those things are already solved,
most of what you have to do is define your database schema and the rest just
works.

As an example in terms of time invested (based on specific personal
experience): To build an api the way you describe for a product like Basecamp
it will take a good developer at least a few months. With sub0 we are talking
1-2 weeks.

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AznHisoka
Maybe I am extreely strict but I would want a developer to create that api
himself in just 2-3 days. we're not talking anything sophisticated here like
bulding a web crawler. This is basic CRUD 101 and not a huge pain point in the
development process.

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ruslan_talpa
While it's not compiler technology (crawlers are trivial too), it's not basic
CRUD either. It's an API able to support your entire frontend/SPA/mobile app,
basic CRUD won't give you that. If you think it will take you 2-3 days to
implement an api for Basecamp i would say you are overly optimistic :). If it
would be that simple, products like Parse/Firebase would have not existed in
the first place (much less acquired by facebook and google)

