
Ask HN: Back end as a service or CMS? - k__
I&#x27;m building a content based service right now and since I don&#x27;t have a big team, I&#x27;m thinking about using a BaaS or something.<p>I have a few professionals who create the content, upload it and manage the restrictions, but besides filming they aren&#x27;t very technical people.<p>I need a mix of WordPress and Parse.<p>On the one side a CMS with a nice, pre-existing admin UI, for not-so-technical people to upload and manage the the content and users.<p>On the other side just a HTTP-API I can use within my App to deliver the content and eventually save some user data with.
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lsiunsuex
Welcome to programming - where there is no right answer and theres 1000
different ways to do what you want to do.

Years of experience wouldn't make this an easy question to answer - everyone
has their preferred stack; way of doing things; etc...

(personally) I like Wordpress for just a strait up blog. Anything more should
get some custom code / CMS. It's not to say you couldn't do this in WP, but
why lock yourself into a framework which may do more then you need it to do or
less and you need to write custom code anyway?

If you write a custom API / CMS, you need to do everything yourself - user
authentication, data storage, UI, the API, etc... It's a lot more work, but
you'll get exactly what you build, no more, no less.

I would do a custom API, and use a CSS framework / JS framework where you can
to save a bit of time. Plugin stuff like Bootstrap to get started quickly with
the layout; there are thousands of JS script for JQuery, React, Vue, Angular
to add any frontend features you'd like, etc... Then, if you ever decide to
build a mobile app, the API is already written and you just need to hook up
the app frontend to it.

It won't hurt to start on WP and see how far you get; if you out grow it or
are feeling limited, start new and switch to a custom API / frontend. While it
may be a PITA, It's not uncommon for new products to go through multiple
revisions in the first year, especially when there isn't a huge team behind it
to prototype different ideas.

~~~
k__
Thank you.

WP seems to be a nice fit, but I wanted to avoid deploying my own servers.

Does this work with the SaaS version of WP?

And does this allow access control of the content based on roles?

~~~
lsiunsuex
Wordpress can do roles for sure - admin, author, editor, etc...

You can look at something like this - [https://wordpress.org/plugins/user-
role-editor/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/user-role-editor/) \- if you don't
want to try to build it yourself.

There are many ways to use Wordpress without rolling your own servers; can
configure a Digital Ocean droplet with WP pre-installed; use wordpress.com,
even AWS has a Wordpress autoscale template.

My concerns with using WP is always what comes down the line. Once your stuck
inside a box, sometimes it's hard to get out of it or change the box into
something else. You can change WP all you want with custom plugins, custom
functions, etc... but at what point do you say, this would be easier with
something custom then to try to make WP do what you want.

Plus - WP has a colorful security history. Google Wordpress security updates
and such and you'll get very mixed reviews on if you should use it for
anything security sensitive.

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bigiain
You've see [http://v2.wp-api.org/](http://v2.wp-api.org/) right?

Are you sure there's anything you need that WordPress 4.7+ doesn't already
have?

~~~
k__
Thanks, sounds nice.

Does this also work with the SaaS version of WP or do I have to host my own WP
instance to get this going?

And does it support role based access? I will probably have 2 kinds of front-
end users. Free users and subscription users.

~~~
bigiain
If by "the SaaS version" you mean WordPress.com, dunno - I doubt it. But you
don't need to host it yourself - there are heaps of WordPress hosting
specialists (I use and have been very happy with WPEngine).

For role based access, yeah - WP has simple role based accounts built in
(admin, editor, author, user, and non-account public access) - and that's
easily extensible with plugins.

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brudgers
I suspect that a mix of Wordpress and Parse probably reduces to Wordpress and
some programming. There might even be an existing addon that does what you
want, but probably not exactly.

------
laktek
I'm building a product that can solve your need. Check -
[https://www.laktek.com/2016/11/29/introducing-
pragma/](https://www.laktek.com/2016/11/29/introducing-pragma/)

It's still in private beta, so please request for an invite.

