Get started with Parse Server

Parse Server is an Open Source BaaS. You can use it as an alternative to Firebase or Supabase. I like it because it is written in Javascript so I can use it with Node.js and also mainly because it saves me times to hassle with auth + I have overall more control over my project setup.

To make Parse work, you need an express server because it is essentially, an express middleware. So to get started we have to init a node project and install the needed dependencies.

npm init -y
npm i parse parse-server express

create an index.js and write inside it the following code:

// index.js
import ParseServer from 'parse-server'
import express from 'express'

const app = express();

const parseServer = new ParseServer({
  // Parse Server options here
});

await parseServer.start();

app.use('/parse',parseServer.app);

app.listen(3000, () => {
  console.log('running on port 3000')
});

Now let's talk about Parse Server's options: It has some required options tha we must provide.

To be continued...