Never heard of Parse? Not surprising. But no doubt you use it. Parse offers massive database services, making it easy for app developers to collect data while managing many of the details.

As an example, Parse offers tools that handle login registration as well as login verification. You hand your visitors over to Parse code, they login, then Parse gives them back to you, all logged in. You don’t have to store the data locally and you don’t have to reinvent the validation code. Parse handles it all.

But all that is about to end. And all those developers need to find another solution or shut down their apps.

From the Parse blog:

We have a difficult announcement to make. Beginning today we’re winding down the Parse service, and Parse will be fully retired after a year-long period ending on January 28, 2017. We’re proud that we’ve been able to help so many of you build great mobile apps, but we need to focus our resources elsewhere.

Facebook acquired Parse in 2013 and started using it internally. It’s not clear if Facebook will continue to use Parse for its own needs and is purely turning off support for 3rd parties, or if it is abandoning Parse entirely. Given how widely used Parse is, I can’t imagine Facebook wouldn’t sell it if it had no plans of its own. After all, it supposedly paid $85 million for the purchase.