Frontend on the IC Backend somewhere else!

Developers
1

Hi all, I would like to ask the following question:

Is it a bad idea to host my frontend application on the IC but use the backend service from somewhere else?

2

Nah, go for it

2 Likes
3

Arguably that’s what people who are working have smart contracts elsewhere and are moving their front ends to the IC (instead of AWS) are doing.

4

ok, I understand this approach and sound’s good to me.

One example could be:
Frontend on IC and a SmartContract running on Solana e.g then I have a 100% web3 implementation.

But what if I have some data stored in a traditional database like mongoDb powered by a node.js REST API. Does that make sense to let the frontend run on the IC?

5

Doesn’t make much sense to me, but it sounds totally doable.

6

I ask myself if we want replace AWS and co and use the IC for real applications, how can I do that ? There is no easy way to use a database or tools for pdf creation or other tools you need for a state of the art application a customer want today.

Maybe it is too early to replace the classic CloudComputing approach with the IC ?

7

That is a reasonable question. This is definitely bleeding edge.

There is no easy way to use a database

In case you haven’t seen it, you may find this helpful: GitHub - sudograph/sudograph: GraphQL database for the Internet Computer

tools for pdf creation

I am not aware of any tools for PDF creation. There may be Rust libraries that create PDFs… which you can then use in your canister (if you write it in rust), but I suspect there are no PDF libraries in ICP ecosystem (i looked and didn’t see any).

8

tools for pdf creation

you can outsource a lot of logic to front-end too like you can store a datastructure on ic and render/create the pdf in browser when the user request it (pdfmake, …)