Concept

Snapser Concepts

Snapser consolidates several essential building blocks for backend development into one unified platform, providing teams with encapsulated building blocks known as Snaps, environments for development pipelines, customization and scalability options, as well as extensive management and accessibility tooling.

Empowerment: Snapser empowers developers to create fully customizable backends effortlessly, catering to apps, games, and digital experiences of any genre. It serves as a comprehensive solution for backend needs, offering unparalleled ease and efficiency.

Modular: Snapser operates on a modular approach, where developers can select and integrate specific components, termed as snaps, tailored to their app’s requirements. This flexibility allows for the creation of custom backends by choosing only the necessary components from the Snapser marketplace.

Snapend: A Snapend is a customized encapsulation of selected building blocks aka snaps and your custom code, data, servers, forming a tailored backend solution for an application.

Customization and Scalability: Developers can bring their own code, data plane, and servers to Snapser, allowing for extensive customization. Additionally, Snapser offers scalability, with the ability to add new components or update existing Snapends as app or game requirements evolve.

Development Pipeline: Snapser provides a robust development pipeline for managing app environments, including Development, Staging, and Production. Multiple Snapends can be created for Development and Staging environments, facilitating iterative testing and deployment processes.

Management and Accessibility: Snapser is a fully managed solution, with backend infrastructure management overseeing operations. An Enterprise plan is available for teams that would like more control over their Snapser deployment, specifically where they can host their own instance of Snapser in their own cloud provider account such as AWS. Moreover, Snapser is designed to be accessible to the entire organization, with persona-based UX and tools catering to different roles.

Primary Functions of Snapser

Snapser offers an extensive suite of features that caters to every product’s needs regardless of size or platform, with modular Snapends simplifying backend development, multiple Snapend management, and DevOps support, alongside tailored pricing plans for greater backend control and deployment flexibility, ensuring accessibility across the entire organization.

• Core features of Snapser: Features and services offered by Snapser—such as authentication, profiles, storage, social graph, relay services, multiplayer solutions, workflow automation, server fleets, multi-region support, infrastructure monitoring, logging, SDK generation, and built-in tools like API Explorers, administration, and business intelligence tools—have been carefully crafted to fit every app or game regardless of its size or platform.

• Building Custom Backends (Snapends): The process of building custom backends shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel with each application. Using Snapser’s modular approach, teams can select and integrate only the necessary components for their apps or games.

• Managing Snapends: Snapser allows you to create and manage multiple Snapends per product by managing development pipelines, via the Web app as well as the Snapser CLI tool.

• Snapser as a Managed Solution: Snapser is a fully managed solution, offering DevOps support for managing backends whether they power apps, games, or internal tools.

• Accessibility Across the Organization: Snapser is designed to be used by the entire organization, not just the Engineering team, with specialized tools and user experiences tailored to different roles.

Build a Custom Backend Using Snaps

In Snapser’s architecture, developers utilize a modular approach, selecting and integrating specific components tailored to their product’s needs. For instance, a collaborative productivity app or asynchronous multiplayer game might combine snaps like authentication, analytics, storage, messaging, and leaderboards from the Snapser Marketplace. Teams can also incorporate custom features, microservices, or macroservices developed internally and then uploaded to the Snapser portal, enabling a customizable backend solution by seamlessly integrating desired components.

The following image illustrates an experience with authentication, analytics, storage, and a leaderboard, supplemented by a custom feature engineered by the product team.

_{Experience A: asynchronous example.}

As the experience grows, you may introduce real-time collaboration or multiplayer features. You can update your existing Snapend, incorporating everything from the previous step along with real-time relay snaps. Consequently, you will have a new customized Snapend capable of supporting both asynchronous workflows and real-time interactions.

_{Experience A: asynchronous example with real-time feature.}

Later, you might launch an entirely new project—perhaps a competitive game or a live commerce app—that requires advanced matchmaking, real-time relay, or authoritative servers. You can establish a new Snapend encompassing multiplayer services, real-time relay, and a server fleet (or other compute) to meet those requirements.

_{Experience B: Authoritative, real-time, and multiplayer example.}

FAQ

• What can I bring over to Snapser?
  • Snapser enables developers to integrate their own components, including code, data planes, cloud functions, and dedicated servers. This can also include third-party services for chat, commerce, voice, anti-cheat, customer support, and more.
• Is Snapser a managed solution?
  • Yes. Snapser is a fully managed solution, where our DevOps team handles the management of your Snapser backends as part of the platform fee you pay.
• Is Snapser only for the Engineering team?
  • During development, engineering primarily utilizes Snapser. However, Snapser is designed to be accessible to the entire organization, including those responsible for monetization, customer support, community management, production, finance, business analysis, and other departments contributing to the product’s success.
• How do I get started?
  • Refer to our Quick Start guide to swiftly deploy a backend, also known as Snapend, in just minutes.