[HN Gopher] Deta Cloud - Developer-friendly cloud platform
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       Deta Cloud - Developer-friendly cloud platform
        
       Author : Gedxx
       Score  : 91 points
       Date   : 2022-01-14 12:55 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.deta.sh)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.deta.sh)
        
       | NmAmDa wrote:
       | What's the catch?
        
         | maxmcd wrote:
         | There's info on VM limitations here:
         | https://docs.deta.sh/docs/micros/about#important-notes
         | 
         | Super excited about this space, but not sure how another player
         | is going to make firecracker/docker/gvisor/whatever based VMs
         | cheaper/free-er than big cloud providers. Would be nice to see
         | more attempts at alternate runtimes like WASM/V8/etc
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | It's an exciting Space in its infancy (IMO). We will be
           | looking into WASM soon!
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | Deta Cloud (deta.sh) is a playground for independent devs, it's
         | not a full-fledged cloud platform. For production scale and
         | monetization, we're working on Deta Space:
         | https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
         | 
         | ceo here btw
        
           | NmAmDa wrote:
           | So what are the limitations for individual developers? Is the
           | network throttled somehow? Or there is limited life time of
           | application to prevent usage for production (for small
           | projects anyway)?.
           | 
           | It seems like there should be more information and a clear
           | explanation of the business model.
        
             | abdelhai wrote:
             | We're working on this atm and will be sharing soon. Have
             | been running for a while without official limits with very
             | little issues. (99% of our devs don't reach our planned
             | limits).
        
             | crispypotatoes wrote:
             | Absolutely, while I'm very grateful for free services I can
             | sometimes wind up avoiding using them because I'm concerned
             | about my privacy or the longevity of a setup
             | 
             | I'd rather pay a modest subscription fee than have the rug
             | suddenly pulled from under me due to funding issues
        
               | abdelhai wrote:
               | That's a valid concern. We're well funded, so you don't
               | have to worry for a few years. The way we will monetize
               | is through Deta Space. Deta Space helps devs scale &
               | monetize their apps without ops and we take a small cut.
               | 
               | check out https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
        
       | wg0 wrote:
       | "We'll take cut."
       | 
       | How that will work? If someone is using display advertising, how
       | the cut can be calculated? Or do you force to have your script
       | included in header that delegates such requests?
       | 
       | Further, someone taking PayPal or other payment processing, will
       | you be hooking yourself in middle by having your own SDK for
       | monitization I suppose?
       | 
       | Might work or might not, basically the apps that make significant
       | amount of money don't won't to give away 5% of their revenue.
       | 
       | Imagine an app making one million USD a month would end up paying
       | 50,000 USD as cut. But pretty sure, if they host it themselves,
       | the bill would be far below something like 5000 USD or so.
       | Equation becomes obvious and they would tend to migrate.
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | Apps published on Deta Space will use our own payment solution;
         | we will process the payment and send the dev their cut. For
         | now, Ad-supported apps will not be published on Space. Space
         | apps are reviewed manually.
         | 
         | We will offer either a simple purchase/subscription mechanism &
         | our own SDK (for more complex use cases).
         | 
         | Offering a 0-ops & 0-liability experience for any dev globally
         | is pretty attractive. There's more to this that I cant talk
         | about yet unfortunately.
        
         | mushufasa wrote:
         | Cloud and developer setups are super sticky. If they have
         | technical lock-in, then that switching cost is not just server
         | vs revshare, but server + devops team + time spinning wheels on
         | infra not focused on product + unknown glitches of a new
         | environment vs revshare.
         | 
         | Essentially, the same business model as heroku -- free and
         | affordable to start, but $$$$ at a medium scale. It will work
         | until the business becomes an enterprise, which it seems Deta
         | Cloud is adamant about not serving.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | jpthurman wrote:
       | Having lived a similar path (Uffizzi was initially a Heroku-like
       | PaaS before we pivoted) I'll offer some lessons learned that I
       | wish I could have had a crystal ball to see. -First I'll
       | reference Peter Thiel's 10x rule - is your product or experience
       | much, much better than the alternatives? -The market is pretty
       | saturated with free and low cost options for hosting. Heroku
       | being the 1st and most ubiquitous and then Digital Ocean
       | launching their PaaS in 2020. I'm sure there's others. I'll
       | concede that Render seems to have gotten some traction despite
       | some significant odds against doing so. -We got $100k in credits
       | from GCP -You'll likely have trouble attracting serious start-ups
       | or businesses because they will worry that you won't be here in 1
       | year or even 3 years. If you don't attract businesses you'll have
       | a hard time getting to monetization.
       | 
       | Your monetization plan is unique and I love anything that
       | simplifies the Dev experience. Best of luck to you.
        
       | yawnxyz wrote:
       | wow I love how simple it seems to do database and file storage...
       | definitely taking a look this weekend!
        
       | ithkuil wrote:
       | love the UI/UX, very snappy and simple; good work!
        
       | tosh wrote:
       | I host https://applesilicongames.com on deta, deploys are almost
       | instant, for similar apps I used firebase in the past but I
       | prefer python to javascript
        
       | sharemywin wrote:
       | How does it pay it's bills?
        
         | Gedxx wrote:
         | I don't Know
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | We will make money via Deta Space which helps devs scale &
           | monetize their apps without ops and we take a small cut.
           | 
           | https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | We will make money via Deta Space (WIP) which helps devs scale
         | & monetize their apps without ops and we take a small cut.
         | 
         | https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
        
         | darrenf wrote:
         | > _How are you going to make money?_
         | 
         | > _We 're working on a big, parallel product that we will be
         | announcing soon. This product will be responsible for
         | generating revenue. Stay tuned!_
         | 
         | From https://docs.deta.sh/docs/home/
        
           | tobilg wrote:
           | I bet this will be web3 / crypto / etc.
        
             | abdelhai wrote:
             | We're a crypto-free company. We will make money via Deta
             | Space which helps devs scale & monetize their apps without
             | ops and we take a small cut.
             | 
             | https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
        
               | bogota wrote:
               | What do you take a small cut of? You keep saying this but
               | it doesn't seem to make sense to anyone in this thread.
        
               | tobilg wrote:
               | Honestly, I don't get the messaging. What is Deta Space
               | from your pov?
        
         | voidmain0001 wrote:
         | Description by author: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/deta-
         | cloud-1-0
         | 
         | It provides a marketplace so perhaps Deta plan to take a cut of
         | sales: https://deta.space/
        
         | vasili111 wrote:
         | First that comes to mind is selling user info. But this is only
         | my thoughts.
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | We don't sell any data. We will make money via Deta Space
           | which helps devs scale & monetize their apps without ops and
           | we take a small cut.
           | 
           | https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
        
             | vasili111 wrote:
             | Great! Thank you for clarification.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | panta wrote:
       | Most of the docs mention Python and Node.js micro-frameworks, but
       | the Deta Base SDK has example code also for Go. Is it possible to
       | deploy (self-contained) binaries compiled from Go on Deta? On
       | Deta Space?
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | We don't support Go on Micros yet. Not enough demand atm but we
         | love Go and plan to support it once we have the capacity.
        
       | wisermonkey wrote:
       | Have used it for a small work project. I love the simplicity. I
       | haven't found a cloud provider that has this limited
       | scope/battery included feel.
       | 
       | I love services like digital Ocean. But everything is designed to
       | deploy and scale "the right way". For projects with small scope
       | this really fits the bill.
       | 
       | Improvement: add something like nodemon -e "deta deploy" I end up
       | reruning that command alot.
       | 
       | Something like "deta -w ./my-awesome-project"
       | 
       | The comments remind me of the inflection point with any
       | opensource/ startup company dev: "great product, id love to use
       | it, but can I trust it?"
       | 
       | Aside: this reminds me of anvil.app but different. This has that
       | same omg it comes with a sql db editor interface (not very fancy
       | but it works)
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | Awesome, thanks for sharing! You are looking for "deta watch"
         | ;)
        
       | hankchinaski wrote:
       | there is no pricing info and difficult to understand the business
       | model if not by reading through the comments on here.
        
       | joshstrange wrote:
       | This looks neat and all but Delta Space (the "production" version
       | of this) has zero pricing info that I can find and I've scoured
       | their site and docs, even tried going to /pricing, /plans, etc
       | nothing.
       | 
       | In the comments the CEO keeps talking about "we're working on
       | Deta Space, which helps devs publish & monetize their web apps
       | with no ops, and we take a small cut" but it's not clear at all
       | what that "small cut" is and if it comes from payment processing
       | or some other fee.
       | 
       | Can we please get some info on pricing for Space?
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | Hi, Deta Space is very new and a lot is still is happening
         | behind the scenes. We're mostly running a closed alpha with
         | some devs from our community. Once we launch Space in beta/GA,
         | we will be announcing more about "the cut". It's likely to be
         | <15% (no infra cost, etc).
         | 
         | I understand this is all vague atm but everything is still WIP.
         | We're not ready for prime-time yet.
         | 
         | (btw, this is not a "show hn", a kind person thought to share
         | us here)
        
       | marbu wrote:
       | Deltacloud[1][2] was a library which abstracted differences of
       | various cloud provider APIs, maintained from 2009 till about
       | 2015. Btw I you need something like that today, there is
       | libcloud[3], which is actively maintained library with a similar
       | goal.
       | 
       | [1] https://deltacloud.apache.org/ [2]
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltacloud [3]
       | https://libcloud.readthedocs.io/
        
         | lolinder wrote:
         | Every single product launch on HN has someone pointing out some
         | sort of naming collision. It gets old.
         | 
         | This product is named Deta Cloud, not Delta Cloud, and in
         | addition to that Apache Deltacloud is retired. Today's
         | namespace is so crowded that all posts like this have convinced
         | me of is that it's impossible _not_ to collide with something.
        
           | marbu wrote:
           | Ah, you are right, I'm misreading the name. Sorry for
           | confusion.
        
           | lijogdfljk wrote:
           | Hah, it wasn't until your comment did i realize the product
           | was Deta cloud. I was reading Delta Cloud lol.
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | https://youtu.be/nqwx2XFb1fQ
        
       | debarshri wrote:
       | The market is actually pretty small for super focussed with PaaS
       | with a specialized business model. Trust me, been there, done
       | that. You have to not only communicate why your PaaS is better
       | than others out there in the market but Also de-mystify why they
       | should adopt your pricing model too.
       | 
       | My argument is that most of the small business and startups
       | struggle to make revenue from get go. Asking for revshare, when
       | it is day-0/day-1 kind of situation can hit the startups, small
       | business, individuals really hard.
       | 
       | To me the your model looks very close to a royalty structure.
       | Which I do not think many orgs and serious startups would like.
       | 
       | Another argument is that, Major cloud providers give away a lot
       | of credits for various services. It can go upto $100k. I would
       | even argue that you don't need devops or specialized team from
       | you are a small org, startup and your operations are small.
       | 
       | Anyways, Looks like a fun project. I actually think the Micro,
       | Base and Drive looks very promising and I wouldn't mind paying
       | based on usage. I think, It can be a fun place to host apps for
       | indie hackers. Would love to list Deta Cloud on Awesome Paas[1]
       | list.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/debarshibasak/awesome-paas
        
       | dottedmag wrote:
       | > You agree that Abstract Computing UG (haftungsbeschrankt), in
       | its sole discretion, may use your trade names, trademarks,
       | service marks, logos, domain names and other distinctive brand
       | features in presentations, marketing materials, customer lists,
       | financial reports and Web site listings (including links to your
       | website) for the purpose of advertising or publicizing your use
       | of the Deta Services.
        
         | lawrencevillain wrote:
         | This is pretty common in a lot of ToS, if you use their stuff
         | (especially for free) they want to be able to use you on their
         | nascar page of logos, or in their pitch decks. I don't really
         | see what's wrong with that?
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | This is for our "app marketplace" (WIP) which we use to promote
         | the apps themselves. We also say look at these cool apps
         | running on Deta.
         | 
         | More about our "marketplace": https://deta.space/ &
         | https://www.deta.sh/space
        
       | greatjack613 wrote:
       | There is no free lunch, I would assume the plan is to either
       | first take over the market and then introduce pro plans and make
       | the free plans have usage limits due to "abuse".
       | 
       | Or the plan is to sell user data or something shady like that.
       | 
       | There is no way a company can offer a free unlimited cloud
       | service, it is to ripe for abuse.
        
         | nullspace wrote:
         | > I would assume the plan is to either first take over the
         | market
         | 
         | Step 1: Introduce free product
         | 
         | Step 2: ???
         | 
         | Step 3: Take over market
         | 
         | In their docs, they have mentioned they plan to monetize
         | through a parallel product: https://docs.deta.sh/docs/home/
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | Yes, Deta Space (WIP) is the way we will make money. We help
           | devs monetize their apps and we take a small cut.
        
         | abdelhai wrote:
         | Deta Cloud (deta.sh) is a playground for independent devs, it's
         | not a full-fledged cloud platform. For production scale and
         | monetization, we're working on Deta Space:
         | https://www.deta.sh/space & https://deta.space/
         | 
         | Deta Space is the way we will make money. We help devs monetize
         | their apps and we take a small cut.
         | 
         | Space is still WIP and we will be announcing more soon. We
         | don't sell data.
         | 
         | ceo here btw
        
       | abdelhai wrote:
       | Hey HN, Deta CEO here. Glad to see Deta on HN! Hapy to answer any
       | question (although a bit sick today, so apology for the short and
       | duplicated answers).
       | 
       | Because many of you are wondering about our business model: we're
       | working on Deta Space, which helps devs publish & monetize their
       | web apps with no ops, and we take a small cut. Deta Space is
       | still in the early pilot stage.
       | 
       | Learn more about Space here: https://www.deta.sh/space & here
       | https://deta.space/.
       | 
       | Have a great day!
        
         | Rygian wrote:
         | The front page says "Unlimited storage" for the NoSQL solution;
         | yet the terms mention a hard limit of 10 GB. Is there a typo?
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | That's for "file storage", aka Deta Drive. Deta Base, our
           | NoSQL doesn't have a limit.
        
             | Rygian wrote:
             | How credible is this, in the long term? Can i use it to
             | build the next Dropbox with unlimited file storage and give
             | it away for free to my users?
        
               | Blanko wrote:
               | I think you've got it backwards. File storage is free up
               | to 10GB, NoSQL is free forever
        
               | breakingcups wrote:
               | Their point is they could store the files in the NoSQL
               | solution if they so please.
        
         | danrl wrote:
         | I'm curios: If you have funding that gives you multiple years
         | of runway (as stated earlier ITT), why didn't you raise the
         | contribution to EUR 25k and turn the UG (Haftungsbeschrankt)
         | into a fully limited liability company (GmbH)? Wouldn't that be
         | one of the first moves when funding is in, to give the founders
         | peace of mind regarding personal liability concerns?
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | There's more to this than one would think :)
        
           | rad_gruchalski wrote:
           | What kind of concerns are you talking about here?
           | 
           | UG is like GmbH with a difference that, afair, 25% or 30% of
           | the profit has to be put aside towards GmbH conversion. Also,
           | you'd do the conversion typically at the end of fiscal year.
           | 
           | For investors putting serious money in, what's the difference
           | if they can recover EUR5k or EUR25k? Stammkapital is the
           | maximum liability for both UG and GmbH.
        
             | qqqturing1 wrote:
             | GmbH looks more serious though
        
               | rad_gruchalski wrote:
               | Both are the same from the legal point of view. UG
               | eventually ends up as GmbH, if company makes profit.
        
         | wyuenho wrote:
         | What do you think you can do to succeed where Meteor failed?
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | I remember Meteor as a framework first. Deta is a platform
           | and allows devs to build apps using their favorite frameworks
           | (mostly) and then deploy & monetize them without any ops.
           | 
           | I trust you heard "no ops" before but Deta uses a new
           | approach that allows us to scale millions of apps to billions
           | of users efficiently. Take a look at our pilot here:
           | https://deta.space/
        
         | depingus wrote:
         | In the docs I see Go SDKs for Base and Drive, but doesn't look
         | like deta-cli supports Go for Micros. Can we write services in
         | Go?
        
           | abdelhai wrote:
           | We don't support Go on Micros yet. Not enough demand atm but
           | we love Go and planning to support it once we have the
           | capacity.
        
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       (page generated 2022-01-14 23:01 UTC)