7 ms·

Show HN: A Bot to Deploy to AWS, Digital Ocean Etc.

vs2 10y ago
I have used deploybot for over a year, great engineering. My favourite deploy tool
avtar 10y ago
Seems like a pretty neat service. To save others some time, they don't have a free tier, you can't host it yourself, and they use Docker for builds before deployments: http://support.deploybot.com/article/1028-plans-and-pricing http://support.deploybot.com/article/1028-plans-and-pricing
- gargarplex 10y ago
  Does one need to have Docker configured to use this? I haven't gotten around to learning Docker yet.
  - ultrafez 10y ago
    Docker's fairly easy to get your head around in a few hours if you do a bit of reading. It's being used as a base tool for more and more projects now, so I'd definitely recommend having an understanding of how it works at a basic level, at least.
- captn3m0 10y ago
  Suggestion to all companies: please have a /pricing/ page.
  - avtar 10y ago
    Fair enough. They do list their prices but on their signup page https://signup.deploybot.com/signup/new https://signup.deploybot.com/signup/new
- riffic 10y ago
  DeployBot certainly does have a free use plan, afaik
  - pbreit 10y ago
    If it does, it's not obvious.
    - riffic 10y ago
      Granted, I might have been grandfathered on the Free Plan: http://imgur.com/a/GZU14 http://imgur.com/a/GZU14 Free Plan includes 1 repository, unlimited servers, unlimited deployments, and unlimited users.
      - pbreit 10y ago
        So Beanstalk does have a free tier still. And it sounds like Beanstalk includes some or all DeployBot functionality?
joshmn 10y ago
Kudos to WildBit. They're undeniably great in all the ways.
- hoodoof 10y ago
  Their team photos look so happy that they seem about to explode in a sparkling cloud of rainbows and unicorns. http://wildbit.com/ http://wildbit.com/
  - joshmn 10y ago
    Sent them cupcakes once. Nat's pretty awesome at customer stuff.
schappim 10y ago
We[1] use DeployBot every day and we can't endorse them enough! The combination of DeployBot, Github and AWS Elastic Beanstalk is awesome and is the closest thing to having Heroku in Australia. We used to just use Elastic Beanstalk, but when AWS moved their deploy method away from git to using zips of S3 bundles, it meant that you needed to reupload the entire app whenever you made a change (not just the delta). This can take a long time on ADSL. DeployBot saved the day here, and allowed us to pull the code from Github. [1] http://littlebirdelectronics.com http://littlebirdelectronics.com
sandstrom 10y ago
Any suggestions on similar open-source tools?
vemv 10y ago
There's a number of startups doing some variation of this. What many don't seem aware of is that plain pull requests, in combination with CI, entirely kill the need for a deploy app/bot. This is how I do it at my current company: * use plain git flow (master/develop, hotfixes, etc) * use additional explicit branches per deployment target (e.g. master-spain for http://myapp.es, master-mexico for http://myapp.mx). * Protect these branches using github/bitbucket 'protected branches'. * open a PR from master to master-spain for performing a deploy of said target, detailng nicely what is being deployed and why. * instruct CI to deploy my app on each build of master-spain. master and develop are never deployed. This setup has the same benefits (and then some more) than competitors: * Explicit deployment authors, reasons, timestamps * Impossible to deploy red code * Impossible to deploy code not in master * Impossible to deploy concurrently to the same target Hope it helps someone!
- poirier 10y ago
  Thanks for sharing!
- josegonzalez 10y ago
  Many teams - why, I don't know - dislike automated deployments, but do like being able to trigger a deployment without needing to setup local deploy environments. In this case, having a bot is useful.
  - vemv 10y ago
    In a way, my setup doesn't automate deployments - i.e. you never inadvertently deploy by committing some code or merging a PR (when your intent was merely approving some code). That's why I made the master vs. master-xxx distinction: deployments are an explicit action, which you are free to defer as needed.
  - flukus 10y ago
    So why is a bot better than hitting the build/deploy button on your CI/CD server?
- EnderMB 10y ago
jszymborski 10y ago
How does this compare to something like Laravel Forge[0]? Is it just that Forge focuses on PHP? [0] https://forge.laravel.com https://forge.laravel.com
parasanti 10y ago
Any suggestions on reading material/designs for deploying a complete CI process for a new development team using these newer processes/applications?
- twista 10y ago
  Definitely take a look onto Ansible[1]. We are using it on daily basis and to deploy and provision servers. Deployment from CI was just 4 lines into CI config (fetch repo, set-up keys, deploy in the very same way as we do) edit: we are using quite widely. Wanna create new servers in AWS - just run a playbook. Wanna setup new database cluster - just run a playbook. So easy [1]: https://www.ansible.com/ https://www.ansible.com/
  - parasanti 10y ago
    Thanks, will do! We are starting a new dev team and I would like to get these practices going immediately instead of "oh, I lost the code cause it was on my laptop" (which happens right now)
- sciurus 10y ago
  If you haven't read it already, read Continuous Delivery. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321601912 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321601912
obisw4n 10y ago
Migrated a complex Jenkins setup to Deploybot in 2015, saves our company a ton of time managing deploys. I'd highly recommend deploybot to anyone. If I could critique even just one thing it would probably be its pricing structure for personal use, I can't justify $15/m just for deployments. I'd love if they had some kind of personal "developer" tier with support for more repos. On the business side, $15/m is ridiculously cheap for what service we're getting.
lsiebert 10y ago
Heh, my company uses this. I didn't realise it was so new that it deserved a HN post to it's front page.
riffic 10y ago
Happy user of DeployBot here. Does exactly what it's advertised it does.
jondubois 10y ago
The problem with generic deployment services like this is that they don't account for scalability. Different stacks have different requirements. I built my own deployment service for my open source project/stack specifically so that it would handle scalability too. See https://baasil.io/ https://baasil.io/ I know Laravel followed this approach too with https://forge.laravel.com https://forge.laravel.com I think using more sepcialized deployment stacks (as opposed to generic ones) is the best approach for non-trivial apps. Though I guess if you use a microservices approach, you could have a different deployer for different kinds of services.

vs2 10y ago

I have used deploybot for over a year, great engineering. My favourite deploy tool

avtar 10y ago

Seems like a pretty neat service. To save others some time, they don't have a free tier, you can't host it yourself, and they use Docker for builds before deployments: http://support.deploybot.com/article/1028-plans-and-pricing http://support.deploybot.com/article/1028-plans-and-pricing

gargarplex 10y ago
Does one need to have Docker configured to use this? I haven't gotten around to learning Docker yet.
- ultrafez 10y ago
  Docker's fairly easy to get your head around in a few hours if you do a bit of reading. It's being used as a base tool for more and more projects now, so I'd definitely recommend having an understanding of how it works at a basic level, at least.
captn3m0 10y ago
Suggestion to all companies: please have a /pricing/ page.
- avtar 10y ago
  Fair enough. They do list their prices but on their signup page https://signup.deploybot.com/signup/new https://signup.deploybot.com/signup/new
riffic 10y ago
DeployBot certainly does have a free use plan, afaik
- pbreit 10y ago
  If it does, it's not obvious.
  - riffic 10y ago
    Granted, I might have been grandfathered on the Free Plan: http://imgur.com/a/GZU14 http://imgur.com/a/GZU14 Free Plan includes 1 repository, unlimited servers, unlimited deployments, and unlimited users.
    - pbreit 10y ago
      So Beanstalk does have a free tier still. And it sounds like Beanstalk includes some or all DeployBot functionality?

joshmn 10y ago

Kudos to WildBit. They're undeniably great in all the ways.

hoodoof 10y ago
Their team photos look so happy that they seem about to explode in a sparkling cloud of rainbows and unicorns. http://wildbit.com/ http://wildbit.com/
- joshmn 10y ago
  Sent them cupcakes once. Nat's pretty awesome at customer stuff.

schappim 10y ago

We[1] use DeployBot every day and we can't endorse them enough! The combination of DeployBot, Github and AWS Elastic Beanstalk is awesome and is the closest thing to having Heroku in Australia. We used to just use Elastic Beanstalk, but when AWS moved their deploy method away from git to using zips of S3 bundles, it meant that you needed to reupload the entire app whenever you made a change (not just the delta). This can take a long time on ADSL. DeployBot saved the day here, and allowed us to pull the code from Github. [1] http://littlebirdelectronics.com http://littlebirdelectronics.com

sandstrom 10y ago

Any suggestions on similar open-source tools?

vemv 10y ago

There's a number of startups doing some variation of this. What many don't seem aware of is that plain pull requests, in combination with CI, entirely kill the need for a deploy app/bot. This is how I do it at my current company: * use plain git flow (master/develop, hotfixes, etc) * use additional explicit branches per deployment target (e.g. master-spain for http://myapp.es, master-mexico for http://myapp.mx). * Protect these branches using github/bitbucket 'protected branches'. * open a PR from master to master-spain for performing a deploy of said target, detailng nicely what is being deployed and why. * instruct CI to deploy my app on each build of master-spain. master and develop are never deployed. This setup has the same benefits (and then some more) than competitors: * Explicit deployment authors, reasons, timestamps * Impossible to deploy red code * Impossible to deploy code not in master * Impossible to deploy concurrently to the same target Hope it helps someone!

poirier 10y ago
Thanks for sharing!
josegonzalez 10y ago
Many teams - why, I don't know - dislike automated deployments, but do like being able to trigger a deployment without needing to setup local deploy environments. In this case, having a bot is useful.
- vemv 10y ago
  In a way, my setup doesn't automate deployments - i.e. you never inadvertently deploy by committing some code or merging a PR (when your intent was merely approving some code). That's why I made the master vs. master-xxx distinction: deployments are an explicit action, which you are free to defer as needed.
- flukus 10y ago
  So why is a bot better than hitting the build/deploy button on your CI/CD server?
EnderMB 10y ago

jszymborski 10y ago

How does this compare to something like Laravel Forge[0]? Is it just that Forge focuses on PHP? [0] https://forge.laravel.com https://forge.laravel.com

parasanti 10y ago

Any suggestions on reading material/designs for deploying a complete CI process for a new development team using these newer processes/applications?

twista 10y ago
Definitely take a look onto Ansible[1]. We are using it on daily basis and to deploy and provision servers. Deployment from CI was just 4 lines into CI config (fetch repo, set-up keys, deploy in the very same way as we do) edit: we are using quite widely. Wanna create new servers in AWS - just run a playbook. Wanna setup new database cluster - just run a playbook. So easy [1]: https://www.ansible.com/ https://www.ansible.com/
- parasanti 10y ago
  Thanks, will do! We are starting a new dev team and I would like to get these practices going immediately instead of "oh, I lost the code cause it was on my laptop" (which happens right now)
sciurus 10y ago
If you haven't read it already, read Continuous Delivery. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321601912 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321601912

obisw4n 10y ago

Migrated a complex Jenkins setup to Deploybot in 2015, saves our company a ton of time managing deploys. I'd highly recommend deploybot to anyone. If I could critique even just one thing it would probably be its pricing structure for personal use, I can't justify $15/m just for deployments. I'd love if they had some kind of personal "developer" tier with support for more repos. On the business side, $15/m is ridiculously cheap for what service we're getting.

lsiebert 10y ago

Heh, my company uses this. I didn't realise it was so new that it deserved a HN post to it's front page.

riffic 10y ago

Happy user of DeployBot here. Does exactly what it's advertised it does.

jondubois 10y ago

The problem with generic deployment services like this is that they don't account for scalability. Different stacks have different requirements. I built my own deployment service for my open source project/stack specifically so that it would handle scalability too. See https://baasil.io/ https://baasil.io/ I know Laravel followed this approach too with https://forge.laravel.com https://forge.laravel.com I think using more sepcialized deployment stacks (as opposed to generic ones) is the best approach for non-trivial apps. Though I guess if you use a microservices approach, you could have a different deployer for different kinds of services.