Frontend Developers, Meet Your New Best Friends…

As a frontend developer, you may feel like you’re standing at the edge of a vast and unknown universe when it comes to finding the right backend tools. Navigating this space without prior backend knowledge can be a daunting task. But fear not!
In this article, we’ll explore the common struggles frontend developers face when it comes to finding backend tools and provide you with some helpful tips and resources to make your journey a little smoother. So buckle up and get ready to discover a world of possibilities!

When building web or mobile applications, there are several essential components of the backend that you cannot ignore. Some of these are;
API database, form validation, user authentication, and file upload. In this article, I’ll describe the use cases of some tools and provide resources to help you get started with them.

API Database

• Firebase: Firebase provides a cloud-based backend service that includes a NoSQL database, authentication, hosting, and more. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers.

If you prefer or learn better through videos, this YouTube channel might be worth checking out.
There's also this community where a group of developers who use Firebase, share their experiences, tips, and best practices.

• Backendless: Backendless is a cloud-based backend service that provides a scalable and secure database, user management, file storage, and more. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a drag-and-drop interface for building APIs.
  Here’s a Youtube course to get you started
• Supabase: Supabase is an open-source backend service that provides a PostgreSQL database, authentication, storage, and more. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers.
  Here’s a Youtube course to get you started
• JSON Server: JSON Server is a popular open-source tool that allows you to quickly create a REST API for testing, prototyping, or learning purposes. With JSON Server, you can create a mock API server with just a few lines of code, and it will automatically generate routes and responses, and even provide data persistence.
  To get started with JSON Server, you can install it globally using NPM by running the following command in your terminal

npm install -g json-server

Once installed, you can create a mock database by creating a JSON file with your data, such as:

{
  "users": [
    { "id": 1, "name": "John" },
    { "id": 2, "name": "Jane" }
  ],
  "posts": [
    { "id": 1, "title": "Post 1", "author": "John" },
    { "id": 2, "title": "Post 2", "author": "Jane" }
  ]
}

Then, you can start the JSON Server using the following command:

json-server --watch db.json

This will start the server on port 3000 and generate RESTful endpoints for your data, such as http://localhost:3000/users and http://localhost:3000/posts.

JSON Server also supports various features such as pagination, filtering, and sorting, which can be useful for testing and prototyping.

You can also check out this Youtube tutorial by Brad Traversy. It covers installing JSON Server, creating a simple API, and performing CRUD operations on the data.

Authentication

• Firebase Authentication: Firebase Authentication provides an easy-to-use authentication system that includes email/password authentication, social authentication, and more. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers.

You can check out this GitHub repository for steps to get started.

• Auth0: Auth0 is a cloud-based identity and access management (IAM) platform that provides authentication and authorization services. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers.

You can check out this Youtube channel for steps to get started.

• AWS Amplify: AWS Amplify is a set of tools and services provided by AWS that enables developers to build scalable and secure web and mobile applications. It includes authentication, storage, API, and more. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers.

You can check out this Youtube channel for steps to get started.

Validation

• Validator.js: Validator.js is a lightweight and easy-to-use validation library for JavaScript. It provides a simple API for validating input data and ensuring that it conforms to specific rules.

You can check out this GitHub repository for steps to get started.

• Yup: Yup is a schema validation library for JavaScript that’s designed to be easy to use and highly customizable. It provides a simple API for validating input data and ensuring it’s in the correct format.

You can check out this article for steps to get started.

• Formik: Formik is a popular open-source library for building forms in React. It provides a simple and powerful way to manage form state, handle form submissions, and perform form validation. Formik can be easily integrated with popular validation libraries like Yup, making it a powerful tool for building complex forms.

You can check out this Youtube channel for steps to get started.

File Upload

• Firebase Storage: Firebase Storage is a cloud-based object storage service provided by Firebase. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers to upload and download files.

You can check out this Youtube channel to get started.

• Cloudinary: Cloudinary is a cloud-based image and video management platform that provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers. It’s designed to be easy to use and offers many features for managing and optimizing images and videos.

You can check out this Youtube channel for steps to get started.

• AWS S3: Amazon S3 is a cloud-based object storage service provided by AWS. It’s designed to be easy to use and provides a simple and intuitive API for frontend developers to upload and download files.

You can check out this Youtube channel for steps to get started.

I recently developed a blog web app and found that these tools made the development process much smoother.
While it’s essential to get the job done, it’s equally important to research and discover tools that can make the process seamless and enjoyable for you as a developer.