We try to provide an API that's flexible enough to do a lot of different things. You can also use Parse for some of your features, and roll your own for others.
If you have a particular use case in mind, we'd love to hear more about it at feedback@parse.com.
I had a similar reaction when I first heard about it, but quickly realized it's definitely capable of offering a lot more than that.
Parse is like an envelope labeled "Instant Server Guy – Just Add Water." If you need your app to be able to create/query/display remote data between users, damn, you've got a huge head-start just by dropping in their code.
