5 ms·

Ask HN: How much do you spend on your side project

29 points by shanwang 11y ago

I mean for side projects that's not making any profit. I'm setting a budget of $800/year, including hosting cost like heroku, domain name purchase, etc. If you have multiple projects, can you please say the average and max cost.

adnanh 11y ago
5$/mo for DO droplet 7$/mo for private Github repos (could be free if you use bitbucket, but the UI/UX is horrific :() 12$/yr for the domain that's about it
- jazoom 11y ago
  GitLab's UI is nice.
  - sytse 11y ago
    Thanks jazoom, that made my day.
    - jazoom 11y ago
      It's the least I could do. GitLab is awesome.
- kannonboy 11y ago
  Hi adnanh, Bitbucket dev here. I agree we have a different UI to GitHub, but horrific seems a little strong. Our designers & front-enders spend a lot of time pixel pushing to build out a UX focused on professional teams. We even have a public set of design patterns and guidelines that apply across all of our products[0] if you're curious. That said, we are always iterating on the design and you are of course entitled to your own opinion. I'd appreciate any specific feedback you could give us on the UI/UX if you'd care to elaborate? [0]: https://design.atlassian.com/ https://design.atlassian.com/
  - debacle 11y ago
    Not the parent's author, but as a fan of Atlassian products here's some feedback: - All of your tools feel dated and cold. The blue "metro" style design reminds me of Trello's design, and not in a good way. - Each individual Atlassian tool has enough minor style differences to make the ecosystem feel less cohesive. - Administration of your software is opaque, to put it nicely. - It seems as though you use color as a crutch for poor layout. GitHub is fixed width and Bitbucket is fluid but I see so much more on my GitHub homepage than on my Bitbucket homepage. - There is a stark difference in the experience in navigating both sites. GitHub seems to have to put a lot of thought into page real estate value. Bitbucket in contrast is much more spartan.
    - kannonboy 11y ago
      Thanks for your thoughts debacle! Let me address them slightly out of order: > Each individual Atlassian tool has enough minor style differences to make the ecosystem feel less cohesive. I think the minor style differences are in part an artifact of our design process. We have a fairly large portfolio of products these days, and try to avoid dependencies between the release timelines and roadmaps of each. This means that a new design pattern or improvement will often appear in one product several releases before it is syndicated elsewhere. The way this often works on the ground is that a designer will invent a new pattern in one product, see it implemented and shipped, and then later abstracted and incorporated into the Atlassian Design Guidelines and Atlassian UI library that ships with all of our products. > Administration of your software is opaque, to put it nicely. Simplifying administration (particularly initial setup) has been a long-time focus of ours, so much so that we codified it into our design principles as "Gracefully reveal depth"[0]. But it's a tough proposition: JIRA is powerful and flexible, but seriously complex, and we're still figuring out how to ease administration without removing or reducing functionality that our customers rely on. We're getting there (check out the admin console in JIRA 7 vs JIRA 6, or any other two consecutive major versions) but I think it will be more or less a constant battle as the products continue to expand in functionality. I appreciate the time you've taken to provide the feedback already, but if you have any specific pain points regarding administration I'd love to hear them. > All of your tools feel dated and cold. The blue "metro" style design reminds me of Trello's design, and not in a good way. > It seems as though you use color as a crutch for poor layout. GitHub is fixed width and Bitbucket is fluid but I see so much more on my GitHub homepage than on my Bitbucket homepage. > There is a stark difference in the experience in navigating both sites. GitHub seems to have to put a lot of thought into page real estate value. Bitbucket in contrast is much more spartan. I'm personally not an aesthete in any sense of the word, but this seems valuable feedback. I'll bring it to the attention of our design and brand teams (and see if I can get them to jump in and comment). Thanks again for the feedback mate. [0]: https://design.atlassian.com/how-we-design/principles/ https://design.atlassian.com/how-we-design/principles/
- milkey_mouse 11y ago
  There's always Gogs as well: https://gogs.io/ https://gogs.io/
iSloth 11y ago
£40/pm - basically some domain costs and a cheap dedicated server from OVH/Kimsufi
wingerlang 11y ago
Zero, not including time. This include profitable projects. There might be the occasional software purchase like Sketch (like $99). I guess I also pay for my webhost and domain.
tiplus 11y ago
$100/month sounds about right. Side projects are hobbies, for which $100/month is not too bad. Just compare that to the cost of operating a motorcycle, a set of golf clubs, owning a horse, building RC cars etc.
osullivj 11y ago
I spend about 40USD/month on spreadserve.com. ~10 for Web Hosting, ~10 for Atlassian Jira, and ~20 for Amazon AWS.
malux85 11y ago
~£200 a month for servers for non-profitable projects
atom-morgan 11y ago
A libsyn account + time
theknarf 11y ago
Domain costs, now a day I use github pages for hosting so I usually don't have to pay for hosting the domain. A subscription for Photoshop. Sometimes I pay for other software. Might have to start paying for IntelliJ soon.
NetStrikeForce 11y ago
I'm currently spending about £50 on server costs and an average of £200 on advertising, which will end soon as I'm switching to other methods. I also spend money on designers and developers. Even for a side project, there are places I don't have time / skills to go to :) and I rely on external -paid- help.
- shanwang 11y ago
  that's interesting, i imagine the cost for freelance developer/designer would be a lot more than the server cost and advertising.
  - NetStrikeForce 11y ago
    Yes, but I don't have those expenses every month. In a year, it could be 5 times the cost of hosting if there's no heavy development from outside (or a complete rebranding :)).
- iSloth 11y ago
  Any recommendations on designers? Always got problems finding decent ones, usually end up chopping Themeforest ones together/appart.
  - NetStrikeForce 11y ago
    Unfortunately that has been my weakest point so far. I think I might have the wrong idea about the cost of a great design (i.e. I might not be offering enough to go from good to great). If you like https://wormhole.network https://wormhole.network I can put you in touch with the designer. She's professional and fast - I just now think it doesn't look as great as I thought at first :)
guda 11y ago
Spread out one time licenses costs and VPS and domain. Rought 40USD/Month
- guda 11y ago
  It is also a bit tricky to count. Would I have bought as good computer if I wouldn't spend so much time coding on it etc.
freek4iphone 11y ago
about $10 per month got AWS, plus some cost for freelance developers. About $50/Month and that's not making profit.
soared 11y ago
All of mine are profitable or have been stopped. Couple websites net ~$1000 adsense a year, after $8/mo hosting costs. Smart mirror raised $4k (lol) seed from university accelerator. Personal website somehow got a random donation that payed for hosting.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
contingencies 11y ago
I don't look at projects in terms of profit, I look at them in terms of interest and thus motivation, learning potential, and possibly maybe way down the line something like profit. The most valuable input is always time, money is pretty much irrelevant.
mindcrime 11y ago
Hmm... hosting costs are around $150.00 / month. Github account is $50.00 / month. Hoovers subscription is $100 / month or so. Co-working at American Underground @ Main is $200 / month. Domain names are probably $100.00 / year counting the occasional purchase of some speculative new domain. So, whatever all that adds up to. We don't have any customer revenue yet, so I sustain things out of my "day job" salary.
haidrali 11y ago
Around 50$ on server as cost
tmaly 11y ago
right now, my fixed costs are just the digital ocean vps for $20 and the cost of the domain names

29 points by shanwang 11y ago

adnanh 11y ago

5$/mo for DO droplet 7$/mo for private Github repos (could be free if you use bitbucket, but the UI/UX is horrific :() 12$/yr for the domain that's about it

jazoom 11y ago
GitLab's UI is nice.
- sytse 11y ago
  Thanks jazoom, that made my day.
  - jazoom 11y ago
    It's the least I could do. GitLab is awesome.
kannonboy 11y ago
Hi adnanh, Bitbucket dev here. I agree we have a different UI to GitHub, but horrific seems a little strong. Our designers & front-enders spend a lot of time pixel pushing to build out a UX focused on professional teams. We even have a public set of design patterns and guidelines that apply across all of our products[0] if you're curious. That said, we are always iterating on the design and you are of course entitled to your own opinion. I'd appreciate any specific feedback you could give us on the UI/UX if you'd care to elaborate? [0]: https://design.atlassian.com/ https://design.atlassian.com/
- debacle 11y ago
  Not the parent's author, but as a fan of Atlassian products here's some feedback: - All of your tools feel dated and cold. The blue "metro" style design reminds me of Trello's design, and not in a good way. - Each individual Atlassian tool has enough minor style differences to make the ecosystem feel less cohesive. - Administration of your software is opaque, to put it nicely. - It seems as though you use color as a crutch for poor layout. GitHub is fixed width and Bitbucket is fluid but I see so much more on my GitHub homepage than on my Bitbucket homepage. - There is a stark difference in the experience in navigating both sites. GitHub seems to have to put a lot of thought into page real estate value. Bitbucket in contrast is much more spartan.
  - kannonboy 11y ago
    Thanks for your thoughts debacle! Let me address them slightly out of order: > Each individual Atlassian tool has enough minor style differences to make the ecosystem feel less cohesive. I think the minor style differences are in part an artifact of our design process. We have a fairly large portfolio of products these days, and try to avoid dependencies between the release timelines and roadmaps of each. This means that a new design pattern or improvement will often appear in one product several releases before it is syndicated elsewhere. The way this often works on the ground is that a designer will invent a new pattern in one product, see it implemented and shipped, and then later abstracted and incorporated into the Atlassian Design Guidelines and Atlassian UI library that ships with all of our products. > Administration of your software is opaque, to put it nicely. Simplifying administration (particularly initial setup) has been a long-time focus of ours, so much so that we codified it into our design principles as "Gracefully reveal depth"[0]. But it's a tough proposition: JIRA is powerful and flexible, but seriously complex, and we're still figuring out how to ease administration without removing or reducing functionality that our customers rely on. We're getting there (check out the admin console in JIRA 7 vs JIRA 6, or any other two consecutive major versions) but I think it will be more or less a constant battle as the products continue to expand in functionality. I appreciate the time you've taken to provide the feedback already, but if you have any specific pain points regarding administration I'd love to hear them. > All of your tools feel dated and cold. The blue "metro" style design reminds me of Trello's design, and not in a good way. > It seems as though you use color as a crutch for poor layout. GitHub is fixed width and Bitbucket is fluid but I see so much more on my GitHub homepage than on my Bitbucket homepage. > There is a stark difference in the experience in navigating both sites. GitHub seems to have to put a lot of thought into page real estate value. Bitbucket in contrast is much more spartan. I'm personally not an aesthete in any sense of the word, but this seems valuable feedback. I'll bring it to the attention of our design and brand teams (and see if I can get them to jump in and comment). Thanks again for the feedback mate. [0]: https://design.atlassian.com/how-we-design/principles/ https://design.atlassian.com/how-we-design/principles/
milkey_mouse 11y ago
There's always Gogs as well: https://gogs.io/ https://gogs.io/

iSloth 11y ago

£40/pm - basically some domain costs and a cheap dedicated server from OVH/Kimsufi

wingerlang 11y ago

Zero, not including time. This include profitable projects. There might be the occasional software purchase like Sketch (like $99). I guess I also pay for my webhost and domain.

tiplus 11y ago

$100/month sounds about right. Side projects are hobbies, for which $100/month is not too bad. Just compare that to the cost of operating a motorcycle, a set of golf clubs, owning a horse, building RC cars etc.

osullivj 11y ago

I spend about 40USD/month on spreadserve.com. ~10 for Web Hosting, ~10 for Atlassian Jira, and ~20 for Amazon AWS.

malux85 11y ago

~£200 a month for servers for non-profitable projects

atom-morgan 11y ago

A libsyn account + time

theknarf 11y ago

Domain costs, now a day I use github pages for hosting so I usually don't have to pay for hosting the domain. A subscription for Photoshop. Sometimes I pay for other software. Might have to start paying for IntelliJ soon.

NetStrikeForce 11y ago

I'm currently spending about £50 on server costs and an average of £200 on advertising, which will end soon as I'm switching to other methods. I also spend money on designers and developers. Even for a side project, there are places I don't have time / skills to go to :) and I rely on external -paid- help.

shanwang 11y ago
that's interesting, i imagine the cost for freelance developer/designer would be a lot more than the server cost and advertising.
- NetStrikeForce 11y ago
  Yes, but I don't have those expenses every month. In a year, it could be 5 times the cost of hosting if there's no heavy development from outside (or a complete rebranding :)).
iSloth 11y ago
Any recommendations on designers? Always got problems finding decent ones, usually end up chopping Themeforest ones together/appart.
- NetStrikeForce 11y ago
  Unfortunately that has been my weakest point so far. I think I might have the wrong idea about the cost of a great design (i.e. I might not be offering enough to go from good to great). If you like https://wormhole.network https://wormhole.network I can put you in touch with the designer. She's professional and fast - I just now think it doesn't look as great as I thought at first :)

guda 11y ago

Spread out one time licenses costs and VPS and domain. Rought 40USD/Month

guda 11y ago
It is also a bit tricky to count. Would I have bought as good computer if I wouldn't spend so much time coding on it etc.

freek4iphone 11y ago

about $10 per month got AWS, plus some cost for freelance developers. About $50/Month and that's not making profit.

soared 11y ago

All of mine are profitable or have been stopped. Couple websites net ~$1000 adsense a year, after $8/mo hosting costs. Smart mirror raised $4k (lol) seed from university accelerator. Personal website somehow got a random donation that payed for hosting.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

contingencies 11y ago

I don't look at projects in terms of profit, I look at them in terms of interest and thus motivation, learning potential, and possibly maybe way down the line something like profit. The most valuable input is always time, money is pretty much irrelevant.

mindcrime 11y ago

Hmm... hosting costs are around $150.00 / month. Github account is $50.00 / month. Hoovers subscription is $100 / month or so. Co-working at American Underground @ Main is $200 / month. Domain names are probably $100.00 / year counting the occasional purchase of some speculative new domain. So, whatever all that adds up to. We don't have any customer revenue yet, so I sustain things out of my "day job" salary.

haidrali 11y ago

Around 50$ on server as cost

tmaly 11y ago

right now, my fixed costs are just the digital ocean vps for $20 and the cost of the domain names