Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by SiVal 2633 days ago
Obvious to everyone except me, it seems, so obvious that it's never mentioned by anybody, is: What about databases?

The answer could be, "Well, obviously, it's not for database-backed websites", or "Obviously it's perfect for database-backed websites, because now you can use their X feature for your database", or "Obviously, you use some other company to host your database but Netlify for everything else, which is a great improvement because...", or whatever.

What am I obviously missing?
1 comments
PudgePacket 2632 days ago
Honestly? Most internet sites don't _need_ a database. You could probably replace most* wordpress/squarespace/wix sites with a statically generated site.

You can call api's from JS and host your database separately, also possible that people use some kind of "serverless" database like google firebase.

link
SiVal 2632 days ago
Most internet sites don't _need_ a database.

Right, and the rest of them—a very significant portion—do. And yes, I realize that it's possible to use JS to fetch from anywhere, but what I'm wondering is what people are thinking when talking about Netlify.

Are they thinking that this isn't really for database-backed websites but can be used if some other Netlify advantage justifies putting your database and the server code that uses it in different timezones? Or is it the opposite, that this is actually a better way of managing a database-backed website?

What is the positioning of this new type of managed hosting with respect to websites that depend on databases full of, say, customer data? It seems as though that would be a FAQ, not an exotic niche.

link
PudgePacket 2632 days ago
I guess they're going after the people who don't need a db first, then add features to support some kind of "db-lite" functionality later. They're competing with wordpress/squarespace, not gcloud or aws (mostly..) :)

See addons: https://www.netlify.com/products/

Also services like this allow you to have a "cms" which is the typical use of a db for _most_ websites: https://www.contentful.com/.

You are correct, heavy db users probably wouldn't go with a service like this :)

link