FAQ
How much does an Apstrata account cost?
Apstrata is a free service for any developer. Sign up and start coding. We even allow you up to 500 real users before any charges kick in. This should get you through development, prototype and maybe even Beta stage. Once you start to gain traction, and tick over 500 users, we have a very simple User-based Pricing model. Check out the details on the Pricing page on this website.
What if the number of registered users in my
apstrata account doesn't reflect the real number of users of my app?
We typically recommend that you register a user name
for each app installed, this can be done by an automatic script that
uses a unique phone ID as the user identifier. However this is not
mandatory, in such case, we revert the developer to the API request
calls per month pricing scheme.
What is considered as an Active user?
An active user is a registered apstrata user profile.
The number of total active users is used as a basis for billing at the
end of each month. If a user profile is suspended (by the appropriate
API) it won't be accounted for in billing in the following month to when
it was suspended, unless it gets reactivated before the end of that
month.
Do you run your own servers?
No. We here at Apstrata love The Cloud. The Apstrata system runs on the AWS cloud. In fact, we like to say that using Apstrata is the easiest way to use AWS. You don't need to worry about Availability Zones, spinning up EC2 servers, Load Balancing, or any of that other details of a server backend. Just use our API and we do the rest.
Can you run the Apstrata service on a private cloud?
Yes. We can (and have) put an instance of Apstrata on a private cloud. You should contact us if this is a requirement for your project.
Do I still own the data that I store on Apstrata?
Yes. Your data is your data. You can retrieve any data that you store on Apstrata should you ever want to do that.
I currently use Eclipse for my IDE. Will I be able to continue to use that?
Yes. Apstrata is agnostic to the IDE that you use. You can use whatever development environment you are comfortable with. In fact, we have some really cool tools for integrating your IDE directly to the Apstrata service. Check out the Wiki for more info.
Why should I use Apstrata?
Because Managing Servers Sucks. You don't want to do it - you know that. With Apstrata you can focus on the unique parts of your application and leave all the backend plumbing to us. With Apstrata you will get to market more quickly, with a more reliable and feature rich product. Your business depends on speed and differentiation - don't get bogged down with boilerplate server code.
Is Apstrata a Development Environment?
No. Apstrata is a web service. It is live, always online and waiting to service your needs via our powerful APIs.
Can I use Apstrata in a Server-to-Server environment?
Yes. Our Restful API can be called via any application environment. The only thing we ask is that you contact us for a pricing plan. The pricing plan that is published on this site is for End User applications.
Is this website really an Apstrata app? What does that mean?
Yes. This website is built as an HTML5 application which uses Apstrata as a Content Management Repository. This means that all the UI code for the Content Management System is written in JavaScript and running in the browser, and the content is managed via Apstrata webservices API calls. The CMS code is available as open source and you can get it from our Google Code repository. We recommend that you look at the source code of this website, and use it as a live tutorial on how to build an HTML5 app using Apstrata.
Are you really based in Beirut?
Yes. Well, Beirut and New York. But most of our development team is located in Beirut. Come visit if you are in the neighborhood. They don't call it "the Paris of the Middle East" for nothing.