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Still looks a lot like yunohost[1] and cozy cloud[2] which for some reasons I find more attractive than sandstorm. Then we have a rather new contender: ArkOS [

Still looks a lot like yunohost[1] and cozy cloud[2] which for some reasons I find more attractive than sandstorm. Then we have a rather new contender: ArkOS [1]: https://yunohost.org/ https://yunohost.org/ [2]: https://cozy.io/ https://cozy.io/ [3]: https://arkos.io/ https://arkos.io/

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Without tackling thoughts on each specific alternative (there are a few others I've played with or looked into as well in this space), the biggest thing I've found is that Sandstorm has a novel approach to security. Some of the other app platforms allow all of the code for different self-hosted apps to run right on the server. Personally, for me the biggest concern is that most of these platforms let apps have full network access. Sandstorm has lagged in certain offerings of apps while the platform makes it possible for them to work, because they've approached this from the point of locking down everything, and then carefully opening up what's needed to do more. (Early versions of Sandstorm, apps could only provide completely self-contained documents, and had no connectivity outside of Sandstorm.) Some people might prefer the others for the easier ability to run those sorts of apps. Another big potential reason to choose another platform might be that different platforms run on cheaper servers or setups. (Sandstorm doesn't work on most cPanel hosting offerings, nor can you install it on a Raspberry Pi, which is a popular request.) I think, if anything, it's fantastic that self-hosting isn't becoming a monoculture. We have a variety of options out there, most of them are open source, a lot of them support the same or similar sets of apps. This is the beginning of the end of the "as a service" era.
e12e 10y ago
I'm not entirely clear if you're saying you prefer both yunhost and cozy cloud to sandstorm (or just cozy) - but at least for cozy.io it doesn't really seem like an alternative to sandstorm, as per the faq: "Currently Cozy supports only Node.js applications.", while as can be seen from: https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/vagrant-spk/packaging-tutorial/ https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/vagrant-spk/packaging-tu... "The tutorial uses a PHP app as an example. Sandstorm supports any programming language that runs on Linux, not just PHP, such as Meteor, Python, Rails, Node, PHP, C++, Go, Rust, and more. Read about vagrant-spk's platform stacks to see how to optimize your package for your app's programming language." As for yunohost it looks like it is more comparable - but essentially is a "cpanel on steroids" - a nice way to automate managing classic server applications: https://yunohost.org/#/whatsyunohost https://yunohost.org/#/whatsyunohost Thank you for mentioning these, I wasn't aware of either -- but I don't think they really are an alternative to most of the use-cases sandstorm excel at. Arkos seems similar to yunohost, although rather than an easy way to manage Debian, it's an easy way to manage Arch on arm (a curios limitation IMHO): https://arkos.io/what-is-arkos/ https://arkos.io/what-is-arkos/
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  Let's put it this way, both are part of a larger effort to put the web back in tracks by having more people self-host their data and web services. Then sandstorm uses a third party google service to track visitors while cozy and yunohost use a self-hosted instance of piwik. One of those is not putting his money where his mouth is... Sandstorm is made from an ex-google employee while cozy has the founder of the european branch of mozilla in its ranks. Then there is the AMD64 limitation of sandstorm, while the other offer support for ARM, the de facto architecture for a low consumption personal server. I think the sandstorm.io website is dense and hard to comprehend, it's not to the point and from the get go I can tell it's pretending to be something it is not (an OS). Also the sandstorm demo feels clunky to me and I experience random crashes and error messages while trying apps in sandstorm. In the end my preference goes to yunohost because it's not from a funded startup with a full team which may explain why it stayed simple and within reach. IMHO ArkOS is closer to freedombox than yunohost, also supporting ARM is the feature not a limitation as it seems obvious that the personal self-hosted server is running on cheap, low consumption embedded ARM. To me a curious limitation is not supporting ARM.
  - e12e 10y ago
    I think I disagree with almost all your points here (or that they are a reasonable criticism/list of things that should be changed with sandstorm) -- but I appreciate you taking the time to respond in such detail. (Modded your comment up FWIW). Didn't realize that Sandstorm (currently) targets only AMD64 - for others interested, the rationale is here: https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/issues/94 https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/issues/94 I don't really see this as much of a problem - at a later point, if Sandstorm is packaged for something like Debian, it's likely people will work on porting it to Arm. As most of the software is already ported, this shouldn't be insurmountable.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Without tackling thoughts on each specific alternative (there are a few others I've played with or looked into as well in this space), the biggest thing I've found is that Sandstorm has a novel approach to security. Some of the other app platforms allow all of the code for different self-hosted apps to run right on the server. Personally, for me the biggest concern is that most of these platforms let apps have full network access. Sandstorm has lagged in certain offerings of apps while the platform makes it possible for them to work, because they've approached this from the point of locking down everything, and then carefully opening up what's needed to do more. (Early versions of Sandstorm, apps could only provide completely self-contained documents, and had no connectivity outside of Sandstorm.) Some people might prefer the others for the easier ability to run those sorts of apps. Another big potential reason to choose another platform might be that different platforms run on cheaper servers or setups. (Sandstorm doesn't work on most cPanel hosting offerings, nor can you install it on a Raspberry Pi, which is a popular request.) I think, if anything, it's fantastic that self-hosting isn't becoming a monoculture. We have a variety of options out there, most of them are open source, a lot of them support the same or similar sets of apps. This is the beginning of the end of the "as a service" era.

e12e 10y ago

I'm not entirely clear if you're saying you prefer both yunhost and cozy cloud to sandstorm (or just cozy) - but at least for cozy.io it doesn't really seem like an alternative to sandstorm, as per the faq: "Currently Cozy supports only Node.js applications.", while as can be seen from: https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/vagrant-spk/packaging-tutorial/ https://docs.sandstorm.io/en/latest/vagrant-spk/packaging-tu... "The tutorial uses a PHP app as an example. Sandstorm supports any programming language that runs on Linux, not just PHP, such as Meteor, Python, Rails, Node, PHP, C++, Go, Rust, and more. Read about vagrant-spk's platform stacks to see how to optimize your package for your app's programming language." As for yunohost it looks like it is more comparable - but essentially is a "cpanel on steroids" - a nice way to automate managing classic server applications: https://yunohost.org/#/whatsyunohost https://yunohost.org/#/whatsyunohost Thank you for mentioning these, I wasn't aware of either -- but I don't think they really are an alternative to most of the use-cases sandstorm excel at. Arkos seems similar to yunohost, although rather than an easy way to manage Debian, it's an easy way to manage Arch on arm (a curios limitation IMHO): https://arkos.io/what-is-arkos/ https://arkos.io/what-is-arkos/

bigbugbag 10y ago
Let's put it this way, both are part of a larger effort to put the web back in tracks by having more people self-host their data and web services. Then sandstorm uses a third party google service to track visitors while cozy and yunohost use a self-hosted instance of piwik. One of those is not putting his money where his mouth is... Sandstorm is made from an ex-google employee while cozy has the founder of the european branch of mozilla in its ranks. Then there is the AMD64 limitation of sandstorm, while the other offer support for ARM, the de facto architecture for a low consumption personal server. I think the sandstorm.io website is dense and hard to comprehend, it's not to the point and from the get go I can tell it's pretending to be something it is not (an OS). Also the sandstorm demo feels clunky to me and I experience random crashes and error messages while trying apps in sandstorm. In the end my preference goes to yunohost because it's not from a funded startup with a full team which may explain why it stayed simple and within reach. IMHO ArkOS is closer to freedombox than yunohost, also supporting ARM is the feature not a limitation as it seems obvious that the personal self-hosted server is running on cheap, low consumption embedded ARM. To me a curious limitation is not supporting ARM.
- e12e 10y ago
  I think I disagree with almost all your points here (or that they are a reasonable criticism/list of things that should be changed with sandstorm) -- but I appreciate you taking the time to respond in such detail. (Modded your comment up FWIW). Didn't realize that Sandstorm (currently) targets only AMD64 - for others interested, the rationale is here: https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/issues/94 https://github.com/sandstorm-io/sandstorm/issues/94 I don't really see this as much of a problem - at a later point, if Sandstorm is packaged for something like Debian, it's likely people will work on porting it to Arm. As most of the software is already ported, this shouldn't be insurmountable.