Introduction to Serverless Code

Kinvey provides a couple of ways to write server-side code for your mobile, web, or chatbot apps: Business Logic and Flex. Both enable you to focus on the functional business logic of an application while Kinvey handles the work of receiving, parsing, and routing requests, connecting to and querying data stores.

Kinvey Flex is a more feature-rich and flexible way to write server-side code for your apps. Flex has three flavors: data integration services, authentication services, and general-purpose functions. With Flex, you create Node.js projects and deploy them either on a Kinvey runtime in the cloud or on infrastructure of your choice. This approach has the benefit of having access to unlimited NPM libraries, including bridges to proprietary solutions like Oracle in case you choose to run it outside of the Kinvey runtime. Other benefits include compatibility with Continuous Integration (CI), popular IDEs, selection of a Node.js version, including the latest version, and support for local testing. Flex services utilize the Flex SDK to connect it with the rest of the Kinvey feature set. Read more

Kinvey Business Logic is the legacy approach to server-side logic that is integrated into, and inseparable from, the Kinvey Console. It allows you to write data hooks, which manipulate data before or after it is read/written/deleted, callable endpoints for general-purpose functions, and common code for code reuse. It also allows you to run endpoints on a schedule. You write Business Logic in JavaScript but are limited to using the libraries made available by Kinvey. Business Logic also has certain resource limitations that may prevent writing complex, long-running code. Business Logic utilizes the Business Logic SDK to connect it with the rest of the Kinvey feature set. Read more