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Parse VS CircleCI

Compare Parse VS CircleCI and see what are their differences

Flagsmith
Flagsmith lets you manage feature flags and remote config across web, mobile and server side applications. Deliver true Continuous Integration. Get builds out faster. Control who has access to new features. We're Open Source. featured
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Parse logo Parse

Build applications faster with object and file storage, user authentication, push notifications, dashboard and more out of the box.

CircleCI logo CircleCI

CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.
  • Parse Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-17
  • CircleCI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05

Parse features and specs

  • Open Source
    Parse Platform is open-source, which means it is free to use and can be customized to fit the needs of your application without any licensing fees.
  • Rich Feature Set
    Parse provides a wide range of built-in features such as a robust database system, real-time notifications, user authentication, cloud functions, and file storage, reducing the amount of development work needed.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    Parse supports multiple platforms including iOS, Android, JavaScript, .NET, and more, enabling easier development across different types of applications.
  • Community and Documentation
    There is a strong community around Parse with extensive documentation and numerous tutorials, which can help developers quickly resolve issues and learn best practices.
  • Unified Backend
    Parse allows developers to manage database, server code, and user authentication in one unified platform, simplifying backend management.

Possible disadvantages of Parse

  • Self-Hosting Complexity
    While Parse is open-source, it requires self-hosting, which involves managing and maintaining your own server infrastructure, adding operational complexity.
  • Performance
    Depending on your server setup and scaling needs, you might encounter performance issues, especially for high-traffic applications, requiring constant monitoring and fine-tuning.
  • Limited Scalability
    Parse might not be as scalable as other backend solutions like Firebase, particularly for apps that need to handle massive amounts of data and users.
  • Initial Setup Time
    The initial setup of a Parse server and its environment can be time-consuming and challenging, particularly for those without DevOps experience.
  • Feature Limitations
    While Parse offers a rich feature set, some advanced features available in other modern backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platforms may lack, necessitating custom development.

CircleCI features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    CircleCI offers a user-friendly interface and straightforward configuration, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced users.
  • Scalability
    CircleCI easily scales with your project, allowing for flexible resource allocation and handling multiple workflows in parallel.
  • Extensive Integrations
    CircleCI supports a wide range of integrations with various tools and services like GitHub, Bitbucket, Docker, and Slack, enabling seamless workflows.
  • Speed and Performance
    With features like advanced caching, dependency management, and parallelism, CircleCI enables faster builds and quicker feedback cycles.
  • Customizability
    CircleCI provides powerful configuration options through YAML files, allowing users to tailor their CI/CD pipelines to specific project requirements.
  • Free Tier Availability
    CircleCI offers a free plan that includes several features, making it suitable for small projects and open-source contributions.

Possible disadvantages of CircleCI

  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While CircleCI is generally user-friendly, mastering advanced configurations and optimizations can take time and require a deeper understanding of the platform.
  • Cost for Higher Tiers
    The pricing for higher-tier plans can become expensive, especially for large teams or enterprises requiring extensive usage and advanced features.
  • Limited Concurrency in Free Plan
    The free plan has limited concurrent builds, which might not be sufficient for larger projects with high parallelization needs.
  • Occasional Stability Issues
    Users have reported occasional performance and stability issues, particularly during high-demand periods, which can slow down the build process.
  • Configuration Complexity
    If not properly managed, the YAML configuration files can become complex and difficult to maintain for larger projects, leading to potential misconfigurations.

Analysis of Parse

Overall verdict

  • Parse is a good choice for developers looking for a flexible and scalable backend solution that can be deployed on their own servers or using cloud services. It is particularly beneficial due to its active community and extensive documentation.

Why this product is good

  • Parse is a popular open-source backend-as-a-service framework that simplifies app development by handling server-side components, freeing developers to focus on front-end development. It offers features like push notifications, cloud functions, social media integration, and a real-time database.

Recommended for

  • Developers who want an open-source solution with the freedom to self-host.
  • Teams building mobile or web applications that require a robust backend service.
  • Projects that need strong support for relational data and real-time functionalities.
  • Developers looking to avoid the overhead of writing custom backend code.

Parse videos

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CircleCI videos

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CircleCI Part 1: Introduction to Unit Testing and Continuous Integration

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How To Setup CircleCI On Your Next Project (Vue, React, or Angular)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Parse and CircleCI)

Parse

CircleCI

Developer Tools
53 53%
Developer Tools
47% 47
Continuous Integration
0 0%
Continuous Integration
100% 100
Realtime Backend / API
100 100%
Realtime Backend / API
0% 0
DevOps Tools
0 0%
DevOps Tools
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Parse and CircleCI

Parse Reviews

10 Top Firebase Alternatives to Ignite Your Development in 2024
If you’re looking for a Firebase alternative that gives you full control and the freedom to tinker, Parse Platform is your jam. Again, it’s a popular open-source framework loved by developers who want to build custom backends without being tied to a specific provider.
Source: genezio.com
Top 7 Firebase Alternatives for App Development in 2024
Back4App is a backend-as-a-service (BaaS) platform that uses Parse Server, the open-source version of the Parse backend. It simplifies backend development and management, providing developers with a robust platform for building modern applications.
Source: signoz.io
What is AWS Amplify? - AWS Amplify Alternatives
It is well-known for making the development process quick, easy, and simple. Using Parse, you may complete a day's worth of work in a few hours.
Source: mindmajix.com
2023 Firebase Alternatives: Top 10 Open-Source & Free
Community Support – If Firebase comes with the backing of Google, then Parse is also tested and trusted by Facebook. Yes, Facebook is the parent company of Parse. Therefore, it has a big community. You can find resources and solutions regarding Parse on GitHub, Stack Overflow and several other programming forums.
Source: digitalcruch.com
12 Best Open-source Database Backend Server and Google Firebase Alternatives
Parse server is an open-source database backend solution which speed up application building. It features database, user management, authentication, file upload and push notification.I used Parse for a few times, and I was satisfied with the speed and productivity it offers, especially in terms of developer tools as it comes with dozens of SDKs, libraries and sample code to...
Source: medevel.com

CircleCI Reviews

The Best Alternatives to Jenkins for Developers
CircleCI is a cloud-based CI/CD platform that has gained significant traction in recent years. With a focus on simplicity and ease of use, CircleCI offers a streamlined approach to automating your build, test, and deployment processes. One of its standout features is its strong support for Docker, making it a great choice for teams working with containerized applications.
Source: morninglif.com
Top 5 Jenkins Alternatives in 2024: Automation of IT Infrastructure Written by Uzair Ghalib on the 02nd Jan 2024
CircleCI– Get unparalleled performance and insights with CircleCI’s interactive dashboard and automatic upgrades – revolutionizing the way you build and deploy your applications.
Source: attuneops.io
Top 10 Most Popular Jenkins Alternatives for DevOps in 2024
CircleCI can be a Jenkins replacement for teams seeking a managed experience where performance and support options are priorities. CircleCI is also investing heavily in building new capabilities that cater to the pipeline requirements of apps using AI and ML.
Source: spacelift.io
35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
CircleCI is a complete CI/CD pipeline tool. You can monitor the statuses of your various pipelines from your dashboard. Additionally, CircleCI helps you manage your build logs, access controls, and testing. It’s one of the most popular DevOps and CI/CD platforms in the world.
Source: www.cloudzero.com
10 Jenkins Alternatives in 2021 for Developers
CircleCI is generally recognized for its flexibility and compatibility. Customization is obviously an important factor when making the switch from Jenkins and CircleCI certainly takes an impressive swing at providing users with a solid collection of features.
Source: solutionsuggest.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CircleCI should be more popular than Parse. It has been mentiond 78 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Parse mentions (21)

  • Supabase Alternatives 🔄 in 2025 😼
    Parse deserves mention primarily for its historical significance as the precursor that inspired the entire backend-as-a-service space. Founded in 2011, Parse pioneered many concepts that we now take for granted in modern BaaS platforms. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • The 2024 Web Hosting Report
    Backend as a Service (BaaS) goes back to early 2010’s with companies like Parse and Firebase. These products integrated everything a backend provides to a webapp in a single, integrated package that makes it easier to get started and enables you to offload some of the devops maintenance work to someone else. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • How to set up a Parse Server backend with Typescript
    Parse Server is a great way to quickly spin up a backend for your project. Parse is a Node based utility that sits on top of ExpressJS. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Free online DB for production app
    You can try https://parseplatform.org/, it is self-hosted if you need. And also there are a number of cloud services with compatible API, like https://www.back4app.com/ It has dart-friendly generated API client, much simpler than firebase and is built on top of postgresql and mongodb. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Supabase Series B
    Not to crash the party or anything. Supabase is great and all but in terms of feature completeness and getting actual products built, it doesn't come close to Parse[0]. Same with Appwrite. Both of these are very popular but they either lack essential features or have them behind a subscription wall. For example, the OSS version of Supabase (last I checked) doesn't include the edge functions which are really... - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
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CircleCI mentions (78)

  • End-to-end testing and deployment of a multi-agent AI system with Docker, LangGraph, and CircleCI
    In this tutorial, you will walk through the process of building, testing, and deploying a multi-agent AI system using LangGraph, Docker, AWS Lambda, and CircleCI. You will develop a research-driven AI workflow where different agents,such as fact-checking, summarization, and search agents, work together seamlessly. You will package this application into a Docker container, deploy it to AWS Lambda, and automate the... - Source: dev.to / 7 days ago
  • Improving API Performance In Legacy Systems: A Guide for API Developers
    Tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, and CircleCI offer capabilities for parallel testing and test caching, allowing multiple tests to run simultaneously. This approach significantly reduces overall testing time and prevents unnecessary delays in deployment. Industry leaders such as Netflix and Amazon employ these practices to minimize outages and maintain high service quality. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Top 17 DevOps AI Tools [2025]
    CircleCI is a leading cloud-based platform for CI/CD that automates the software development process, enabling teams to build, test, and deploy applications with efficiency and precision. By integrating seamlessly with popular version control systems like GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, CircleCI enhances collaboration and accelerates development cycles. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Building a serverless GenAI API with FastAPI, AWS, and CircleCI
    GitHub and CircleCI Accounts: You will need a GitHub account to host your project’s repository and a CircleCI account to automate testing and deployment through CI/CD. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • CircleCI vs. Jenkins
    CircleCI is a CI/CD platform that automates the process of building, testing, and deploying software. It helps developers integrate code changes more frequently and efficiently, ensuring that software development teams can detect and fix errors quickly. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Parse and CircleCI, you can also consider the following products

Firebase - Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications for mobile and web.

Jenkins - Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration server with 300+ plugins to support all kinds of software development

AWS Amplify - JavaScript library for app development using cloud services

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

Back4App - Low code backend to build apps faster and scale easily.

Travis CI - Simple, flexible, trustworthy CI/CD tools. Join hundreds of thousands who define tests and deployments in minutes, then scale up simply with parallel or multi-environment builds using Travis CI’s precision syntax—all with the developer in mind.

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