

Hoist – Fast API based web development - owenwil
http://hoistapps.com/

======
owenwil
We're working on a no-backend solution to help developers build great entirely
client-side cloud apps. We provide a set of API's that can be used if you host
on our platform or off it, and they work with any language. There are Restful
API's for user authentication/signup, data management and more, as well as an
easy way to get your app hooked up with other cloud API's like
Twitter/Spotify/Facebook in a client-side app, which has been quite tricky
until now.

We provide a Javascript library for these apps but you can also roll your own,
since all our APIs are documented and are simple get/post requests.

It's quite a new space so there's only a handful of companies doing this;
Hoodie is one of the others that is most notable.

Would love to hear what HackerNews thinks and happy to answer any questions.

~~~
k__
What's the difference between your service and Hoodie, GoInstant and Firebase?

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owenwil
We're somewhat similar to GoInstant (not so much Hoodie) but the difference is
we're building out a platform with a lot of features to help make development
easier as well as faster. You can connect your app up to Github or Dropbox to
sync your code on the fly, for example. Or, you can use our environments
feature to create a clone of your production code to work on new features in a
sandbox.

We've got some unique features, such the ability to connect with other cloud
apps' API's such as Xero, Spotify or Twitter in your client-side app.

In the future, we'll also have Billing API's so you can quickly charge your
app's customers, a search API for client-side apps so that Google can index
them correctly and are looking at building out a marketplace so developers are
able to on-sell their apps to others too.

Firebase's offering is similar to our Data API, but the differentiation is
that we've built out a number of other features around it that are
complementary and add value for developers, as well as offering hosting for
them.

~~~
k__
Sounds nice!

I tried GoInstant, but didn't like the coding-style of the API.

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muhuk
Starbucks logo looks nothing like those round icons they've used under "Some
more great features" but why did I immediately think of Starbucks when I was
looking at them?

I'm not even a coffee aficionado.

~~~
makaveli8
Those screamed Starbucks to me too. I guess starbucks have done nice work with
their branding and marketing, such that anybody looking at a circle with some
writing and frilly bits thinks "Starbucks".

~~~
owenwil
All hail our glorious overlord Starbucks! I can see how you might think it was
that at a glance :)

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Mandatum
Cool to see an NZ-based business on HN. I'll have a play around this week and
give feedback - hope your visit to SF is going well! The site is looking super
polished (I want to steal your designer) too.

~~~
owenwil
Thanks Mandatum, we would love the feedback! The team is having a great time
in San Francisco, lots of amazing people to meet.

Appreciate the kind words - we love our designer too :)

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makaveli8
I signed up and got to the
[https://go.hoistapps.com/welcomeSource](https://go.hoistapps.com/welcomeSource)
page and when I try and click "Get started" with upload selected I get a js
error.

~~~
owenwil
Fixed now! Sorry about that!

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rb2k_
"Some more great features: [...] Billing"

"COMING SOON!: [...] Billing"

Looks like a nice service, but things like these always make me cringe a bit.
Also: No pricing :(

~~~
owenwil
I totally understand! We're working on getting it right, but it will be coming
soon. There are too many terrible billing services out there for websites.

Here's some basic info on pricing, but we haven't put it up too publicly yet
as we're trying to get it right:
[http://hoistapps.com/terms/pricing](http://hoistapps.com/terms/pricing)

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strick
Any thoughts about forking Angular and building in Hoist support to make an
officially supported Angular/Hoist client side library?

