Facebook Inc. has officially closed its Parse mobile development platform some 12 months after announcing that it intended to do so.

Parse, which was used by developers to build mobile applications for iOS, Android, Windows and other platforms, was acquired by Facebook for $85 million in 2013. At the time of the acquisition, Facebook pitched the buy as being a way for them to support developers who want to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices. It allowed developers to work with native software objects that provide back-end services for data storage, notifications, user management and more.

While it never became the most popular app development platform on the market, the service still had its fans, with apps using the hosted Parse.com service hitting 600,000 at its peak. Facebook claimed its decision to close Parse was part of a plan to focus more on creating “high-impact products and services in areas like analytics, monetization, discovery and authentication.” Decoded, that means it wants to focus on tools that run within the Facebook ecosystem.

Once the service is fully closed, a process still ongoing at the moment, developers will not be able to export or access their data. Facebook advised developers in a blog post that “if you still have data on Parse that you would like to save, you should export your Parse data as soon as possible.”

A migration guide provided by the company allows users to set up their own Parse server in conjunction with Heroku and either mLab or ObjectRocket, with all three services described as being “easy to use, especially if you are new to deploying and managing your own backend stack.” The Parse code has been made available via open source.

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