In 2019, Microsoft introduced Dapr, an open-source project that simplified building event-driven distributed applications for developers. Dapr quickly created its own ecosystem, especially after being donated to the Linux Foundation by Microsoft. Some creators of Dapr, along with the related KEDA project, went on to found their own companies, such as Diagrid, which is launching its fully managed Dapr service in public beta today.
The new service, Catalyst, acts as an API platform, offering developers an alternative to managing their own Dapr installations.
According to Diagrid CEO and co-founder Mark Fussell, Catalyst allows developers to utilize Dapr regardless of their preferred language or platform. Previously, enterprises had to manage Diagrid’s Conductor project using Kubernetes on their own, which is not always desired by every company.
While Catalyst currently supports the core Dapr APIs, the Diagrid team plans to offer support for all of them by early next year.
One of the key features Catalyst already supports is Workflows. Diagrid co-founder and CTO Yaron Schneider highlighted the importance of Workflows for developers, citing examples of companies using Dapr Workflows for tasks like generative AI workloads. This positions Dapr as a versatile integration service.
Companies looking to transition from Dapr to the newly-managed Catalyst only need to update the API endpoint, assuming they are using the currently supported features.
Mark Fussell shared, “Catalyst is the reason we founded Diagrid. We recognized the complexity developers face in building microservices and distributed applications. While major cloud providers focus on infrastructure, the application developer space often gets neglected, leaving developers to figure it out themselves.”
