Comparisons

Today, a new wave of innovation is making databases approachable for developers without requiring a specialized skillset, opening the door to a whole new category of ambitious web experiences. In this panel, you’ll hear from the people pushing the boundaries of database technology and learn what’s possible — and what’s coming.

Hosted by Ian & Alex, with Alana (Readyset), Hojjat (Deltastream), Jamie (Convex).

Relational databases are powerful tools for persisting data, but using them to build interactive web apps requires a lot of work. A web app architecture built on a relational database is an entire cluster of databases, backends, caching nodes, and Pub/Sub servers. And even after you invest in all of that infrastructure you'll still need to explicitly define your database schema upfront and write cumbersome SQL queries. At Convex we believe that web developers shouldn't have to worry about any of this. We can handle the servers, caching, and reactivity and you can focus on your product.

On Cloud Firestore, you'll have to do some acrobatics to integrate with React and listen for realtime updates. Down the road, you'll find your app full of slow loading experiences from request waterfalls and your database full of half-committed mutations.