DreamFactory Platform Roadmap
We're constantly evolving the platform to serve client needs. The following timeline presents some historical perspective regarding previous releases, as well as a glimpse into future DreamFactory features.
DreamFactory 3.0 - Biggest Release in Years!
DreamFactory 3.0 is the most significant platform release in more than two years! Highlights include:
- New administration console design and countless UI improvements
- Restricted administrators (commercial version)
- API lifecycle auditing (commercial version)
- MS SQL Server encryption and optional trust server certificate options (commercial version)
- Upgrades to the GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket connectors
- Added scripting support for Python 3
- Automated installers for several Linux distributions (see the installers directory)
DreamFactory 3.0.3 - UI Improvements Galore!
In this release we've made a number of UI improvements. We added a "Save and Clear Cache" button to the service editing interface. This shortcut means administrators will no longer need to navigate to the Config > Cache interface after modifying a service's configuration. We also fixed a bug associated with the popup error widget not always appearing when invalid values are used in the service creation Info tab. Finally, we alleviated some longstanding confusion regarding the purpose of the service UI's Name field. This name forms part of the generated API's URI, and should therefore be lowercase and not contain any special characters. We've changed the field name to Namespace and added an error message should the field value not confirm to the aforementioned requirements.
DreamFactory 3.0.4 - Improved SFTP Connector Role Based Access Controls!
DreamFactory can natively generate APIs for a wide variety of databases and file-based data sources, including SFTP. In this release we improved how role-based access controls are configured for SFTP-based REST APIs.
DreamFactory 3.0.5 - Python 2 and 3 Dual Mode Support!
After an incredible 20 years of releases, the Python team stopped support for Python 2 on January 1, 2020 (see this announcement for more information. Of course, this doesn't mean organizations will quit using Python 2; it still has a vibrant and huge ecosystem, and let's face it upgrading scripts can be difficult and expensive.
To accommodate those who desire to use Python 3, the DreamFactory 3.0 release includes support for both Python 2 and Python 3.
DreamFactory 3.1.0 - New Excel Connector!
This release includes Laravel 6 support. Laravel 6 is an LTS (long term support) release, promising bug fixes through September 3rd, 2021 and security fixes through September 3, 2022.
Commercial users also have access to our new Excel connector! This connector converts an Excel spreadsheet into a JSON stream. You can choose to return the entire workbook (all tabs) as JSON, or select a specific workbook tab. Learn more about this new feature in our blog post.
DreamFactory 3.1.1 - New API Call Scheduler!
Our commercial users have long requested a point-and-click solution for scheduling API calls. Our 3.1.1 commercial release includes a new feature which allows administrators to schedule API calls at a per-minute resolution (once per minute, once every 5 minutes, once every hour, etc). The scheduler isn't limited to GET calls either! POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE are also supported, and you can accompany requests with companion payloads.
In this release we also improved the Excel connector's role-based access control capabilities.
DreamFactory 4.0 - A Better Scripting Experience!
This release removes support for the stagnating V8JS scripting engine that has long been a part of the platform (DreamFactory also supports 3 other scripting engines, including NodeJS, PHP, and Python). Because this is a breaking change we bumped the major version to 4 so as to not cause compatibiity issues for our 3.X users.
DreamFactory 4.1.1 - Squashing a Few Bugs!
Version 4.1.1 is largely a bug fix and maintenance release, with one new minor configuration feature. We've added an EXTERNAL_IP configuration parameter which administrators can use to specify a DreamFactory instance's external IP address. If set, DreamFactory will not automatically attempt to determine the external IP address using a web service call. This is useful for users running DreamFactory in a firewalled environment.
We also updated LDAP support for PHP 7.4+, and fixed a bug associated with the OpenID connector.
DreamFactory 4.2.0 - PostgreSQL Materialized View Support
In this release we did quite a bit of code-related housekeeping, squashed several bugs and added materialized views support to the PostgreSQL connector.
DreamFactory 4.3.2 - General Application Copy Improvements
This release included various general copy improvements.
DreamFactory 4.3.3 - Active Directory Improvements
This general bug fix and improvement release focusing on our Active Directory connector.
DreamFactory 4.4.0 - New Apache Hive, Hadoop, and Snowflake Connectors
This very exciting release includes three new API generation connectors for Apache Hive, Hadoop, and Snowflake.
User Interface Improvements
In Q2 we'll turn our attention to improving the DreamFactory administration user interface in a variety of ways based on customer feedback.
GraphQL Improvements
In Q3 we'll work on improving our alpha release GraphQL connector.
Additional Connectors
In Q4 we plan on adding several new connectors, notably expanding into third-party sales and marketing services such as Twitter, Pipedrive, and Autopilot.
API Monitoring
DreamFactory users have long been able to monitor API usage through the Logstash connector, tracking API usage according to a variety of metadata including the URI, API key, HTTP method, and status code. This however requires integration with a third-party tool such as Kibana or Grafana. In this release we'll bring this data into the platform, giving administrators a convenient means to track and reference API usage.
API Testing
Plenty of API testing tools have long been on the market (both OSS and commercial). These tools integrate quite well with DreamFactory, however we'd like to more tightly integrate some of these options, and so plan on introducing a convenient testing solution in this quarter.
API Infrastructure Monitoring
Our presently recommended approach to API infrastructure monitoring involves the adoption of tools such as Prometheus and Grafana. In this release our goal will be to build out a series of readily-installable monitoring dashboards which can immediately give administrators actionable insights into their API environment.
Visual API Builder
DreamFactory's powerful scripting environment supports advanced API-related features such as API composition, API chaining, and response transformations. It does however require programming experience using a scripting language such as NodeJS, Python, or PHP. At the conclusion of 2022 we plan on embarking upon a multi-quarter project in which the DreamFactory administration interface is overhauled to include a visual API workflow builder.
