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Nick Abouzeid

Napkin Beta - Backend in the browser

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Napkin is the next-generation production-ready backend development tool in your browser. Fast, powerful code editor, zero configuration instant deployment, instant API endpoints, unlimited λ functions. No infra. No boilerplate. Just code.

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Ghost Kitty
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Nick Sypteras
Maker
@thomaswang We're working really hard on making backend development as easy, fast and fun as possible. Thanks everyone for the feedback and support! We're very eager to hear and iterate on your use cases and feature requests. Feel free to reach out to me at nick@napkin.io with any feedback.
Tom Shwa
@thomaswang @napkin @syps Cool product, but it's breaking for me. Not able to create new napkins, the one I tried is just showing a loading icon, and I am unable to log in from another device. I recognize that Napkin is in beta (and is very new) so hope you will fix this. Anyways I love the idea, good job 😊.
Nick Sypteras
Maker
@thomaswang @napkin @hippielemur Thanks, Tom! Could you please email us with your username or account email at support@napkin.io? We'll look into this right away!
Mehmet Efe Akça
@nickabouzeid @thomaswang This is actually so cool. Just deployed my own napkin and it's actually working. There are some rough edges, running while development sometimes returns empty response and logs (even though I added logs to see if the problem came from me), however deploying and using in production seems to be fine!
Ghost Kitty
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Dave Fontenot
I still remember the first hackathon I used Parse at. It changed the game for me. People always made fun of my coding skills bc I didn't even have my own laptop when I went to my first hackathon freshman year in college and had never really coded before then. I quickly learned how to build some stuff on the frontend but absolutely sucked at backend bc i just could never get the dev environments working and deployed right. It was so frustrating. When Parse launched Parse Cloud it changed the game for me. I could write functions in javascript and suspend them into the cloud to call from anywhere my app. Didn't have to worry about doing backend dev at all. When Parse sold out to Facebook and they shut it down, I cried. Today, I cried again. Napkin gives me hope that I can one day become the very best developer like no one ever was and build shit without needing to rely on those backend developers who would always make fun of me and tell me i wasnt a real hacker bc i couldnt build a backend. Thank you @thomaswang and @syps. Thank you for breathing new life into me as a dev. Thank you for building napkin. I can't wait to hack again and finally finish building robinclout: http://bitclout.com/u/robinclout
Naga Samineni
Okay this is one of those rare products that makes you want to come back to PH and leave a feedback. Love the GUI based editing and instant deploys. I've tried Replit before, but for backend development, having trying napkin out since the last half hour, napkin stood out to me, even in the current beta release with clear differentiated offering and production readiness. Good job you guys!
Ghost Kitty
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Kunal Shah
I wouldn't be surprised if this gets a bunch of hate from devs, but it may be coming from the sunk cost of having spent countless hours learning how to properly set up the infra of a backend app. Then, boom, Napkin.io makes it easier than creating a website on webflow, and no wonder some respond with doubt
Dave Fontenot
@kunalsh23 yeah i cant imagine what it would feel like to have spent ten thousand hours learning backend development and then see something like this launch sheeeesh
Raj Vir
@kunalsh23 @davefontenot Agreed, whenever I used to bring up Parse or Firebase, I would frequently get pushback from experienced backend developers, and I sensed a part of that pushback was because it obsoleted some of their knowledge. I think many backends could be built mostly with Firebase, using Napkin/Lambda to fill in the gaps.
Andrey Pyankov
Napkin is the best way to write, test and deploy cloud functions! I love its simplicity and great design.
Rohan Ramendra
Looks great! Congrats on your launch. How do you plan to prevent users from misusing this by using it for attacks or any illegal purposes?
Nick Sypteras
Maker
@rohram21 Hey, Rohan! Thanks for question. Like other cloud providers we don't regulate what users can and can't do with our site; however, we do monitor the usage of our sandbox tool and may intervene if we see it being used maliciously. We really appreciate the feedback!
Kyle Giffin
Bravo Nick & Thomas 👏 this is seamless. Can't wait to share with our engineers.
Ivanna Wendel
Cool product @thomaswang ! Congrats on the launch!
Alfredo Andere
Every time that I build the backend of an application I think about how repetitive it is. Spinning up a cloud instances, deploying a web server, serving my code in the correct way, its so tedious and automatable, yet I still have to do it from scratch every time. Not anymore I guess! This product will save me hours every time I make a new product. I can't wait to try it out. Thank you so much and best of luck!!
jess
Cool concept and very intuitive design. Getting dev environments running is the worst and this makes it so easy. Congrats on the launch!
Lukas Siatka
Napkin is awesome! It has become my starting point for getting backend for my apps up and running without even thinking about the infra. Great job guys!
Kunal Shah
I used napkin to whip up some backend endpoints for my new app and was astonished at fast I could write and deploy a python handler. I had a backend written and deployed in less than 2 minutes, and I'm not even exaggerating! I'll be using Napkin as my go-to tool when building out new concepts. Amazing job team @thomaswang @syps 🙌
Sunny Rekhi
Super fun, seamless way to spin up backend functions. Excellent UX and hugely helpful. Y'all rock! 👏👏
Christina Cheng
Huzzah, @syps @thomaswang Congrats on your launch!!!!!
Anubhav Singh
Used Napkin to - 1. Teach students code with real time deployments 2. Create quick proof of concepts for clients 3. To demonstrate tiny concepts while answering on stackoverflow 4. To carry out a quick task with files in my S3 buckets more usage examples coming, this product solves so much for me I'm overwhelmed! Brilliant stuff. Kudos to the developers
Ghost Kitty
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Aleks Bochkov
This is great! Congrats on the launch 🚀
Josh Jarman
any plans for a javascript version? (python free)
Ghost Kitty
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Ghost Kitty
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Patricia
congrats on launching this :D
Jonathan Xu
This would've made the learning process for a younger me so much less intimidating. From personal sites to IoT projects, this totally lowers the barrier to entry for backend dev. I think we'll see an explosion of ideas manifest on Napkin, thanks to @thomaswang and @syps 🥳
Ghost Kitty
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Manuel Astudillo
Interesting concept. I wonder, what if I want to use my favourite code editor (VSCode) instead of the browser, is that supported as well?
Nick Sypteras
Maker
@manuel_astudillo Hi, Manuel! Right now we are focusing on development of our in-browser code editor, but we are exploring additional ways to deploy code for the full launch. Stay tuned! And thanks!