Experience the power of Xano! How to build a backend in no-code? An overview of the platform from the inside!

Hello, welcome to another episode of our Just No Code podcast. My name is Kamil Tarczyński, and today I will tell you about a tool called Xano.

What is Xano?

Xano is a no-code tool that, as it describes itself, has the slogan "Build Scalable No-Code Backend." What does that mean? It means that Xano claims it can build a scalable backend using no-code. And that's entirely true. With Xano, we can build an ultra-efficient backend without writing even a single line of code. Of course, if such functionality is needed, we can add lambda functions, so to extend it, or we can expand it with other API-requests, or some third-party solutions. But generally, we can build a backend without using even a single line of code.

Functionality of Xano

How does Xano function? What does it look like inside? You will find out in today's video. Let's start.

‍

Getting Started with Xano

Alright, as you can see, we are already in a specific instance of our Xano. The interface looks a bit different, as you can see, we build slightly different things in Xano, and we will use them differently. In Xano, we build only and exclusively the logic of solutions, meaning that we build how a particular function should work, what its next steps are, what exactly is supposed to happen there. Xano does not allow us in any way to build the frontend. Here, we build only and exclusively the backend.

Capabilities and Limitations

Of course, Xano, for example, allows us for data regionalization, for a more programmatic approach when creating these backend functions, and we will talk about them in a moment. I will show you exactly how it works. But first, let's get acquainted with the dashboard of our instances.

Managing Workspace in Xano

As you can see, Xano asks us to finish setting up, we won't be doing that right now, it's not of our interest. We have our workspace usage, we will see how many API requests have been made in the last 24 hours. We can review our history in detail. We have information about tables in the database or just about API requests. Yes, in the last 24 hours, not a single API request was made, and that makes sense. We have settings, here we only have the names of our workspace. We can clone our workspace, we can export data from our workspace and reset, for example, drafts.

Database in Xano

We also have a database. And the database is something that is the heart of our application, where in fact we can create new tables in our functionalities, in our APIs. These tables, of course, we can extend as we deem fit, add more columns that will be columns of a specific type. As you can see, there is really a lot, and we have unlimited possibilities here.

Security and Data Management

We have settings for our specific database table, for example, whether only authorized users can access it. We can take care of security, variables. We can manage versions, autocompletes, and so on. We can also display the relationships between these tables to understand how these relationships function as our database grows. This is, of course, some mega example database just for training, so not necessarily these relationships here are smart, but you can take a look at them.

Managing Tables in Xano

We can also add a table or import them from a CSV file or directly from Airtable. In every part of Xano, you also have starter information on how to start working with all these things, video tutorials, so you will have a quite easy introduction to how it all looks in detail.

‍

API in Xano

Then we have the API, which is essentially the heart of Xano. Here we create API groups in which we create specific API endpoints, in which we create specific functionalities. The basic API endpoint or group is the API endpoint for user authorization. A user can log in, register, or just retrieve information about their account.

API Management Panel

As you see, the panel looks in such a way that here we have information about App and Points, where we have information about what type they are, what their link is, and the description if added. We have information about the URL. This URL can obviously be our URL. It does not have to be a URL from Xano. By default, it is. We also have automatically created documentation in Swagger, allowing us to share it with developers or whoever we wish.

Configuring API Endpoints

To add API endpoints, we can also manage some settings whether this swagger is enabled or not, security variables, how exactly they should look, how we can use them, version history, request history where you will simply have listed all the requests that have fallen into a given endpoint. And documentation in Swagger.

Working with API Endpoints

So, you see, we have several of these cool options available. Let's enter a specific API Endpoint. Here again, you can view the request history of a given Endpoint. You can create a snippet that other users can use.

Database and Indexes

In the case of the database, of course, we can also create indexes, which is very important from the perspective of application performance or backend performance. We manage these backend indexes manually, and it depends on us how it will look, exactly how the index will function. We also have a schema that we can display, and of course, we also have references regarding a specific database.

API Endpoints - Detailed Configuration

Returning to our login endpoint, as I mentioned, each of our endpoints is divided into 3 sections: inputs, function stack, that is where we create the whole function, and in what form the response is returned. In inputs, we create fields that are to reach our endpoint if any are to reach. So we need to define their name, whether they are required or not. We can describe them, we can say whether it is a list, whether it is a single record, whether it is nullable or not. And whether it is public, private, or internal only. Of course, here we send an email and text, password. So we send these two pieces of information. And here we will create the whole function stack. As you see, in the case of logging in, we first check if a user exists, then we check the precondition. If a user does not exist, if the value is null, where we made a get record search, we look for an email if such email exists, we can configure here exactly how the output should look.

‍

Expanding Functionality in Xano

Of course, we can add various functionalities here. As you see, we have database requests, where we really have a lot of options: query, all records, get record, has records, edit records, add multiple records in bulk, add or edit record, database transaction, clear records, direct database query, which are simply written with SQL statements. You see, there are really a lot of options here and they are really advanced, and that's just the database.

Data Manipulation

We have data manipulation, where we can create variables, update them, create conditionals, create loops, perform mathematical calculations, create arrays, create objects or texts. Then we have things related to security, like creating UID, authentication token, by date password, generate password, and so on, various tokens, decoding, encoding them, encryption and decryption.

Caching and Custom Functions

We have data caching to Redis, we can manage the entire data caching, which is based on Redis. We have custom functions, which we can add from the outside or we can create our own. We have various utility functions, such as HTTP header adding, preconditioning, pausing our workflow, environment variables, there are a lot of such things here.

Debugging and Testing

In the entire function, we put ourselves, stop at this moment and throw me something, some variable, e.g., user or pass result, whatever happened exactly. We can test it. See run and debug. And here let's say I'll type some email, kamil plus one have no code.io oops, one two three and I'll click run now, invite credentials we have thrown out information, the precondition was obviously not met we can enter the debugger.

Advanced Capabilities of Xano

You see, we really have a lot of options here. We also have Content Upload, we have external API request, where we can just create to integrate with some external APIs so thanks to this again our possibilities of creating an advanced backend are increasing. We have microservices in higher plans and lambda functions.

Optimization and Advanced Queries

And we really have all the possibilities to create a really mega advanced, mega responsive, mega fast perfectly working backend using only and exclusively no-code by shifting elements or setting up the logic of how it looks. I would like to show you one more thing about how exactly loops look, because I think it is very interesting.

Loops and Response Optimization

Data manipulation, let's make a loop. Of course, we have various for each, for while or break or continue for each or remove entry let's take for each and for each loop on here of course we don't have to take any list we didn't take any list here because here we take a single record so here in this stack we add already more and more things for example here we want to create some variable in each iteration, so that something exactly happens to us. Of course, I'm talking here about very theoretical things, we're not talking about any specific workflow, just about how it will look.

‍

Defining Responses

And something that is also very interesting in the case of Xano is that we can specifically define how we want our response to look. If, for example, we want to return some variable - record. We click Customize this. I don't want it to return all the information about this user. I only want it to return his email and password. So if we will be returning this information, we can manipulate what information we want to be returned in the response of our answer, which means we download less data on the frontend, thanks to which we can totally manipulate and say OK, fine, I want my frontend to load faster, it will simply have less data. Joins on tables, very advanced queries on tables or such things are all perfectly possible.

Advanced Filtering and Custom Queries

See that we can also filter our records through joins or some custom queries. Again, we can manipulate what the output will look like, in which variable it will be, whether it will be sorted or will have pagination, etc. And how it will look in the external response, the one made from outside, not within our functionality. So, as you see, this allows us to simply build a mega-advanced backend.

Cron-Jobs and Background Tasks

We also have what are called cron-jobs or background tasks, which are tasks not triggered by a specific request but, for example, are performed every day at 8 PM. Their editing looks the same way. We build some function stack and set its timing, how often it is repeated, when it ends, or when it simply has to start. Thanks to this, we can do such background tasks that will be processing everything.

Library and Add-ons

Next, we have the library tab, where we have different functions, custom functions added from the outside or created by us, allowing us to create various snippets. We have Add-ons that allow us to "Enrich Your Data," which is a great expression. They allow us to enrich our data with some other data. So here, as you see, we can, it's very similar to GraphQL, which allows us to add more things to our API queries, or responses that are simply returned.

‍

Files and Marketplace

And we also have files. Sometimes files are necessary for storing on the backend to simply display or show them. We have the Marketplace, in the Marketplace, we have various snippets, different integrations ready from which we can use to simply create something faster, whether it's payment processes, sending some messages, something related to security, or user authentication. If you wanted to integrate with Stripe, then here you have some integrations already ready, you can see what they contain, you have Extor Live Demo, or you can just add it to your endpoint.

‍

Integrations and Settings

You see they have five endpoints, one database, one environment variable, so you immediately see just what will be added to your backend. We also have private. Maybe I will not enter this moment. And we have connect, where we can simply integrate our backend with various solutions, including, for example, with Webflow. And we also have settings, where we have some information.

‍

Summary of Xano's Capabilities

As you see, Xano has a lot of options for creating only and exclusively backend, but for a very advanced backend. Here I refer you to the Xano documentation because you will see that the functionalities that Xano offers are much more extensive than those I showed you in this video. There are really very many of them. Additionally, Xano has all certifications certifying its security, performance, etc., such as ISO, SOC, etc. We can also add additional if, for example, we wanted to build some mettech solution in the United States, so it is really a great solution for building a very complicated backend. I hope this video showed you what Xano is capable of and what kind of possibilities it has and that it simply clarified something for you. That's all from me in this video, thank you very much for your attention, see you, goodbye!

‍