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How scalable does a simple checklist app need to be? Especially when that checklist app has next to no users? I just don't think that managing your own SSL cer

How scalable does a simple checklist app need to be? Especially when that checklist app has next to no users? I just don't think that managing your own SSL cert and backups are worth $250 a month for a tiny application that no one uses. Logging into your VPS once a month to install updates is beyond trivial. That might not be my strategy if I had hundreds of paying customers, but the author of the article didn't have hundreds of paying customers. The moral of the story is that you should choose the right tool for the job. A $250/mo. Heroku app for a developer who wants to fiddle around with it for a tiny side project is not a good value as far as I'm concerned.

drchiu 11y ago
Agree with brandon272. $250/mo is not a viable business plan. As much as I'd like to say my time is more valuable, honestly I'd rather save my $250/mo and built out a solution that's cheaper. For the naysayers, my relatively small apps receive over 300k reqs/day and it's hosted on a much, much cheaper infrastructure. Just remember to cache things where appropriate and you'd be surprised how much $30-40 in server costs can take you.
- ahstilde 11y ago
  What sort of infrastructure?
  - drchiu 11y ago
    Bare Metal. I typically use something like OVH's offerings.
- onion2k 11y ago
  Adding an unnecessary $200/month to your burn rate is silly, but if it'll kill your business then there isn't a viable business model there in the first place. He'd only have needed, say, 10 paying customers to cover his expensive hosting. The fact he couldn't get those first 10 customers is why he failed, not the hosting costs.
skywhopper 11y ago
Managing SSL, backups, and updates well and correctly take time. Not just the time to do them but the time to learn what needs to be done. A productive software developer is not one who worries about squeezing every dollar out of her service providers. If you already know how to handle all the other services or enjoy learning, go for it. But for some people it's best to focus on what you enjoy and are good at, and outsource the rest. I agree that if this app is just a hobby, it's not worth having all the extra services. But given the services provided, $250/month, when weighed against a good software developer's time, is a good value.

drchiu 11y ago

Agree with brandon272. $250/mo is not a viable business plan. As much as I'd like to say my time is more valuable, honestly I'd rather save my $250/mo and built out a solution that's cheaper. For the naysayers, my relatively small apps receive over 300k reqs/day and it's hosted on a much, much cheaper infrastructure. Just remember to cache things where appropriate and you'd be surprised how much $30-40 in server costs can take you.

ahstilde 11y ago
What sort of infrastructure?
- drchiu 11y ago
  Bare Metal. I typically use something like OVH's offerings.
onion2k 11y ago
Adding an unnecessary $200/month to your burn rate is silly, but if it'll kill your business then there isn't a viable business model there in the first place. He'd only have needed, say, 10 paying customers to cover his expensive hosting. The fact he couldn't get those first 10 customers is why he failed, not the hosting costs.

skywhopper 11y ago

Managing SSL, backups, and updates well and correctly take time. Not just the time to do them but the time to learn what needs to be done. A productive software developer is not one who worries about squeezing every dollar out of her service providers. If you already know how to handle all the other services or enjoy learning, go for it. But for some people it's best to focus on what you enjoy and are good at, and outsource the rest. I agree that if this app is just a hobby, it's not worth having all the extra services. But given the services provided, $250/month, when weighed against a good software developer's time, is a good value.