Case Study: Delicious Simplicity

A boutique design & development company uses Hasura, Gatsby and JAMstack to build out a blazing fast static site.

Introduction

Delicious Simplicity (DS) is a boutique design & development company based in Los Angeles. They specialize in building websites and webapps with a heavy emphasis on great UX. Their client base is mainly large non-profits and news & media outlets.

For a recent project, they were tasked with building out a static web app that contained a lot of real-time functionality. The web app included a lot of functionality in common with popular video platforms (such as Youtube) - for example, user accounts, playlists and watched video history.

In addition, the backend for this project also had to keep in mind a mobile app that the client was building separately with another team. It was decided to use the same backend for both the static web app and the mobile app.

This project presented DS with a number of technical challenges that they were able to navigate thanks to GraphQL and Hasura.

Adopting GraphQL and Hasura

DS decided to use the JAMstack for their static web app, with Gatsby for the frontend. DS also decided to use GraphQL for their APIs so that the same backend could be used (without too much iteration on the APIs) for building the mobile app.

One question they had was to understand how user-authenticated actions work inside a static site - at first they were not even sure if it was possible to add YouTube like functionality to a static site. DS attended JAMstack Conf to get an answer to this question, and it was here that they were introduced to Hasura.

After trying Hasura out over a weekend, DS was amazed at how quickly they were able to setup GraphQL and an authentication system for a Gatsby site using Hasura, with the kind of extremely fine grained access control system that they would need for the user-authenticated actions they had in mind.

Outcomes

Despite being their most ambitious  JAMstack project to date, DS was able to finish the project with very few developer resources on a very tight deadline. What’s more, the Hasura backend that they set up was also flexible enough that it served most of the needs of the mobile app that was being built by a separate team outside of DS.

“Hasura was integral to the success of this project. It allowed our team to setup a complete static site with authentication and real-time functionality. Not to mention the support and communication we received from Hasura throughout the process was flat-out incredible!”  
- Brian W.

Future Roadmap

For this project, Delicious Simplicity plans to add more functionality to the app, such as the ability to download videos and watch offline, and expanding the functionality of playlists and watchlists. They are confident that Hasura will work for them as the application becomes more complex.

Delicious Simplicity also plans to use Hasura for their future projects -  next up is a realtime chat app!

Want to know how Hasura can help your team? Schedule a demo.

This case study was prepared basis a discussion with Brian Webster, Founder of Delicious Simplicity.