The future of Parse - what are the long term plans and goals

Parse Server 📡
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First Id like to state that I love Parse, I build almost all of my projects with it. I would be lying if I didnt consider the fact that Parse could at any time disappear into obscurity what with other similar things like Supabase (havent tried it, would rather build my own if the time came).

As I said before Parse is fantastic once you know how to use it, the amount of features is great but it would be better if it wasn’t just in maintenance mode and was given some kind of boost marketing wise because not a lot of people even know about it and those that do just comment “oh isnt that the thing Facebook created and killed off”

Supabase have a very clean sexy modern website, everything you need to know is right there - but parse also has all this stuff its just not displayed clearly.

apologies its just something I’ve been considering but as I dont know any other Parse users irl I figured to post it on here

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First off, there are many projects running under the “open source” label today, but not all open source projects are created equal. In the past, open source initiatives were often driven by community-focused philosophies centered on transparency, accessibility, and collective growth. Today, however, some open source projects are backed by investors with profit expectations, which can influence both their evolution and longevity.

Parse Platform is a prime example of a community-funded open source project, sustained by the dedication of developers and users who genuinely believe in its capabilities and long-term value. In contrast, investor-funded open source projects like Supabase, which has raised hundreds of millions in venture capital, will eventually need to generate returns. Investors don’t give money away for free. Supabase may one day face pressures to monetize or pivot, potentially positioning it closer to Firebase in terms of strategy and monetization.

The Parse community has managed to maintain its independence and open-source integrity since Facebook transitioned it to us. While our community may be smaller, that closeness is an advantage, offering more meaningful contributions from people who are genuinely invested in its future. Parse’s “maintenance mode” is a reliable, stable base. Though it may not boast a flashy marketing presence, it provides powerful features for developers. Saying it’s “only in maintenance mode” overlooks the ongoing efforts by contributors who are enhancing features, adding new ones, and resolving bugs.

That being said, it’s true that there’s room for improvement - and we’re working on it. From redesigning the website to attract new developers, to rewriting the documentation for an improved developer experience, to modernizing and unifying the Parse client SDKs for streamlined development, to updating Parse Dashboard with a new framework, and fixing open issues across all Parse repositories. We introduced the Parse Bounty Program to incentivize contributions, but some changes are significant and require a broader community collaboration.

We’re always open to suggestions on how we can improve Parse’s future and expand its reach - every idea helps us shape a better experience for developers, so I appreciate you opening this topic.

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Let me try to answer your questions.

Activity:

The forum here is used mainly for developer support and general discussions. Regarding developer support, virtually all recent posts received a response. Feature improvements and additions are discussed on GitHub, unless the idea is so vague that it requires a more fundamental discussion, which is rarely the case. On GitHub, you can open any repository and see the Insights stats, for example for Parse Server, or look at activity in issues and pull requests.

Longevity:

Parse has been around for decades, as open source since 9 years. The code base is mature and stable, which is an advantage compared to younger projects.

Roadmap:

We have had roadmaps in the past but they turned out to be challenging to follow in an open source project that depends primarily on voluntary contributors. Looking into the past few years, the main reason for a feature to be contributed was the need for the feature by the contributor, or the kind sharing of an already developed feature with the open source community. Hence we abandoned the idea of a roadmap and let the project steer itself. That being said, we are currently looking to recruit resources that contribute to Parse Platform on a permanent basis, paid for by community donations. Once we have that, a roadmap may make more sense. We do have focus points that are high up in the list, one being for example a fundamental rewrite of all the Parse client SDKs.

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Both SDKs have a different design internally, but both fulfill the same purpose of providing a Parse SDK for the Apple ecosystem. Both SDKs provide different functionalities, so it really depends on your needs. The one where you see more recent community contributions is the one that is better maintained, which is currently the Parse Apple SDK. However, as I’ve mentioned earlier, we plan to replace both SDKs soon with a single new generation Parse SDK that is more streamlined with the functionalities of Parse Server. We will provide support for migration to the new generation SDKs at least for the Parse Apple SDK which is our longest serving SDK for Apple.

One aspect to consider when evaluating 3rd party SDKs or forks of our community SDKs (or any GitHub repository for that matter that is not part of a wider org) is to look at the commit history to see how many different developers did actually contribute in the past and who is providing developer support. If you only see 1 developer, that means it’s a high risk repository because it all depends on a single developer. If that developer stops maintaining the SDK in the future for whatever reason, you may suddenly be forced to migrate to a different SDK without any support, not to mention security vulnerabilities that may go unnoticed for a while. The community around Parse Platform is really our strength here and I can say that as far I can look back, for every critical issue in the past we saw strong community collaboration and engagement to act quickly.