BaaS

Backend as a Service: a ready-made server backend, database, auth, storage, functions, consumed through SDKs instead of built.

BaaS hands you a backend as a product. Database, authentication, file storage, push notifications, sometimes serverless functions and realtime channels, all managed behind SDKs, so the client-side of your app talks to finished services instead of your own API layer. Firebase is the archetype; Supabase, Appwrite, Convex and PocketBase, the self-hostable minimalist, are the current field, and the boundary with PaaS is mostly where the database stops and your code begins.

Why it matters to an indie builder: a BaaS deletes the entire first month of a typical project, the auth system, the file pipeline, the API scaffolding between client and database, and replaces it with SDK calls and a dashboard. For prototypes, hackathon builds and solo products, that month is the difference between shipping and shelving. The honest trade is dependency: your data model and security rules now live inside someone else's product, and migrating later is real work.

A concrete example: a mobile app for gym workout logging. Custom backend: auth with email and OAuth flows, a Postgres schema, an API with a dozen endpoints, file storage for progress photos, push for reminders, six weekends minimum. Supabase route: the client SDK calls the database directly behind row-level security policies, auth is a configured screen, storage is a bucket, edge functions handle the two bits of custom logic. First shippable build in one weekend, and the schema is plain Postgres underneath, so the exit door stays open.

Common mistakes: putting business logic in the client because the SDK makes it tempting (the server still owns the rules; security policies are not optional decoration), skipping the exit-cost evaluation, check export tooling and whether the database is a standard engine before committing, choosing a BaaS for a project that will outgrow its query model, heavy relational reporting eventually wants a real database, and ignoring the free-tier cliff, the spark plan problem, where a viral weekend scales into a four-figure bill because nobody priced the writes. The hosting blocks on IndieBoot group these platforms with the databases they run on.