From Bubble to Xano + Weweb vs Azure

alfred.s

Hello fellow Xano developers,

I have a few questions and concerns regarding the compatibility and advantages of using a stack consisting of Xano and Weweb compared to custom development in Azure.

Allow me to introduce myself and provide some context. I am a co-founder of Syncdesk, a startup working on a platform for internal communication and operation management tailored for frontline workers in the hotel industry. Currently, we have developed our minimum viable product (MVP) using Bubble. However, we are encountering some challenges related to compliance (GDPR), scalability, and the potential complexity of migrating to a more scalable foundation for future development.

We have started gaining traction and receiving early validation for our service and business model. As a result, we are planning to relaunch our platform in a new environment that offers greater scalability and compliance.

We have been in contact with Microsoft through their startup program, as they possess significant experience and resources in the Enterprise B2B SaaS space. During our participation in their SaaS event, we were introduced to their Azure SaaS framework kit, which serves as a best practice architecture for handling tenants, user identity, onboarding, and administration.
Link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/architecture/example-scenario/apps/saas-starter-web-app

Now, onto my questions:

1. Is it possible and advisable to initially build a temporary stack using Xano and Weweb, with the intention of migrating to an Azure microservice architecture at a later stage? Alternatively, should we invest our efforts in building the foundation directly in a fully Azure environment, utilizing services like Azure container apps?

Additionally, I have some related questions:

1. Does the combination of Xano and Weweb support the separation of app, permission, and tenant data, similar to Azure's architecture with its control plane, identity framework, and end user application?
2. Can Xano and Weweb integrate with Azure AD, facilitating an easier migration to the Azure environment in the future?

I appreciate any insights and guidance you can provide regarding these questions. Thank you in advance!

Ray Deck

All of what you want is possible. These pieces are work to implement. You can integrate with AD and Microsoft Graph authentication with your Xano and front-end - we have members collaborating to work on this right now in the State Change Pro group.

You bring up a number of concerns that can each significantly increase the complexity of your build - per-region data storage support (e.g. GDPR), federated identity, microservices - and i am sure you have more to come. I would try to get a clear sense of which attributes are important, and then design around those to the exclusion of others. This requires an understanding of your business needs that only comes from getting deeper into the market.

A virtue of using a no-code stack is the ability to create those learnings through rapid, iterative shipping. The Xano+Weweb stack can do that in a way that helps with compliance (because data can be stored in Europe) and enables a lot more power for experiments. That experimentation aimed at validated learning would be my north star to evolve your business.

alfred.s

Thanks for a nice overview. I also think it's important not to start working against Xano by creating different workarounds.
How will it work in practice in Xano + Weweb to create separate services, such as a control plane to manage tenants? Is this only possible with the enterprise plan or do you have to create and pay for multiple instances?

Ray Deck

Single instance multi tenant architectures are relatively straightforward - just a matter of managing the relationships in a limited number of tables. In multi-tenancy you usually don't need multiple instances because you are sharing the instance among the tenants.

Your business may have more detailed requirements, but without understanding those more, I'm not in a position to make more specific recommendations!