If you use CoreData (and you should) you can get the same effect by using a NSFetchedResultsController. http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/CoreDa...

The advantage of using Parse is that it syncs the local store with the store on the server. However, if your server exposes a RESTful API, it isn't too difficult to sync by writing up a bunch of closures using NSURLConnection+BlocksKit.h. https://github.com/zwaldowski/BlocksKit/blob/master/BlocksKi...