Introduction to Hasura

The goal of Hasura is to make data easily accessible with a GraphQL API that aids API consumers and developers in being more productive. With a dynamic approach, Hasura promises to make "integration and iteration easy."

The event engine empowers teams to embrace cloud nativity without worrying about delivery, reliability, and scaling challenges.

Meanwhile, Hasura enables developers to build applications with ease while focusing on business logic, not application logic. Here's a detailed introduction to all Hasura has to offer.

What Is Hasura?

In short, Hasura is an instant real-time GraphQL API engine. When you connect Hasura to your database, you'll get a unified data access layer in return, which means your data becomes instantly accessible.

With Hasura, teams are able to build and deliver apps and APIs at incredible speed.

Hasura ties into your databases, GraphQL servers, REST servers, and third-party APIs, generating a unified and instant real-time API across every data source.

There's no need to write code to reflect Postgres database tables, either, as they're reflected in the GraphQL queries and mutations automatically.

Benefits of Hasura

Hasura promises many benefits, including the chance to build apps and APIs 10x faster.

Hasura also offers built-in authorization and caching while GraphQL and REST APIs are described as "blazing fast." To top it off, the entire platform is open source.

Other benefits you can expect include:

• Fast execution: Build applications and add features in a matter of days, not weeks, with GraphQL enabling self-serve access to critical data.
• Modernize applications: By automating up to 80% of the API development workflow, Hasura allows projects to take shape and transform organizations in a shortened time frame.
• Scalable APIs: Instead of granting database access, Hasura creates a scalable data API that is secure and guaranteed to perform, all while supporting other key business initiatives, like data privacy.

"Developers and architects love Hasura because it takes no time to get started, doesn’t need them to be a GraphQL expert upfront, and saves their teams months of recurring effort in building, shipping, and maintaining their APIs," Hasura explains.

Getting Started with Hasura

Aside from promising that you can get started in as little as 30 seconds, Hasura is quick to reinforce that you can productize your data in under a minute.

You can set Hasura to run either locally or in the cloud and connect it to your databases for an instant GraphQL API that's ready for production.

Integrate with Your Authentication System

Hasura integrates with your existing authentication system, ensuring that you aren't restricted to any one provider.

Bringing your own authentication system is made easy, although Hasura favors the JWT mechanism.

If you work with customized authentication systems, you can also use the auth webhook, which allows cookies and tokens in a custom format.

Migrate Existing Applications and APIs

With Hasura, you can incrementally adopt the platform without needing to remove and replace or rebuild components. Migrate your applications to Hasura when it works for you.

Existing applications can use business logic with the use of Hasura Actions, buying time to migrate legacy code and rewrite any microservices your business already has using Hasura.

Scale Vertically and Horizontally

With Hasura Cloud, your applications will scale automatically in any direction without any need for manual intervention.

There's no need to plan for memory thresholds or number of instances.

Continue to add concurrent users and API calls and let Hasura Cloud determine the most optimized figures for you.

Phillips Healthcare and Pipe's growth by utilizing Hasura

We are sharing these two cases which experienced growth by successfully implementing and utilizing Hasura.

Accelerating Development at Phillips Healthcare

Aside from being a Fortune 500 company, Philips Healthcare is known for its innovative solutions that offer better diagnostics and improved patient care.

While Philips has always focused on performance and efficiency, the brand's latest concept demanded a new way of working.

To accommodate the cutting-edge Radiology Operations Command Centre, Phillips turned to Hasura.

"If we had gone the traditional way this process would have taken us 2-4 years. With Hasura we have been able to crunch it to just under a year. Achieving this timeframe in a highly regulated environment like healthcare is phenomenal," explains Karthik Srinivasan (Solution Architect at Philips Healthcare).

Some of the benefits that Philips Healthcare gained from using Hasura;

• 50% reduction in team size per project
• Commercial release in under 1 year
• 2-4x faster development
• Devs were freed up from back-end and database work

For more in depth insights regarding the company's challenges and impact of Hasura usage see the full case study.

Supporting Pipe's Massive Growth

Pipe is a fintech startup that's growing rapidly. In one year alone, Pipe has welcomed over 3,500 new customers and taken on over $1 billion in tradable annual recurring revenue, and they've done it with just 11 engineers.

Despite incredible success, with rapid growth comes equally massive challenges.

Pipe needed to balance immediate requirements with future needs, which meant achieving a faster time to market, gaining flexibility in their architecture, and maintaining high standards of security and performance.

"Hasura helps us remove the strict boundaries that traditionally separate front-end and back-end engineers, and makes it easier for any developer to make changes. We needed 50% fewer front-end developers than we thought we needed. Hasura and GraphQL reduced the toil to build and iterate on the frontend," explains Peter Downs (Director of Engineering at Pipe).

For further details on challenges and obstacles the Pipe was facing and the impact of Hasura in resolving them check the full case study.

Is Hasura Right for You?

Deciding whether or not Hasura is the right solution for your business should begin with an evaluation of your business's core needs and concerns.

Consider the solutions and approaches you're currently using to build and deploy applications and connect them to your databases, and then consider the potential advantages a platform like Hasura has to offer.

When implemented correctly, Hasura promises to save teams substantial time spent on API deployment, which can translate to major cost savings, assuming that

Hasura's unique approach is suitable to your company's bigger workflows and objectives.

To help you make your decision, be sure to browse Hasura's in-depth documentation and explore the case studies they've shared.

If you need more in depth assistance feel free to reach out to us.