5 ms·

This looks great, I really like datomic but its licensing is preventative for small projects. Hope this helps it get more love and community attention.

by dh-g 9y ago

fulafel 9y ago
Can you expand on this, what do you find wanting with the various choices? "Small project" can mean very different things between 0 and 10M$ budgets, but there seem to be a lot of options reaching to the low end, even the free Starter edition sounds pretty capable.
- ledgerdev 9y ago
  For me a small project would generally mean a clojure web app with a couple hundred users, a clojure admin webapp used only occasionally, and a back end cron job that runs every 5 minutes or so and does the back end work. Any rough guesses what we are looking at to run this monthly using the Solo topology on aws?
  - stuarthalloway 9y ago
    That should fit easily in the Solo Topology at about $1/day.
    - ledgerdev 9y ago
      Yes, but I was wondering how much memory would be needed for each of the other apps (web/admin/cron) connecting to the Solo. Would they require a full JVM peer, with a couple gig of memory each, right?
      - stuarthalloway 9y ago
        Cloud uses clients, not peers, so those apps can be much more lightweight. I have tested down to 128M per Clojure (JVM) client, which is an order of magnitude less mem than a typical peer.
- gonewest 9y ago
  Suppose you have an open source or hobby project. The Free Edition has limitations that impact how you would write code -- it supports only the "peer" API and not the "client" API, and is restricted in terms of backend storage choices and number of peers. So while it's very likely true there's perfect API compatibility when you want to step up to a paid edition, it makes you design to the artificial limitations they've used to set apart "free" from "paid". Indeed, it's also not the recommended way to learn. The Datomic team says: "If you are trying Datomic for the first time, we recommend that you begin with a client library." In other words, the Free Edition doesn't include the client library that they recommend you try first. If you step up to the Starter Edition you have full functionality and free updates but only for the first year. Beyond that, you start paying. Either you run in Cloud (as low as $1/day) or you purchase the on-prem Pro Edition ($5000/year). Don't get me wrong. Cognitect has the right to charge whatever they like, and bundle features however they like. It's their intellectual property and they made the investment to create it. But if you're building a hobby project then even $1/day may be more than you want to spend, and/or more than you want to impose on outside contributors to your codebase.
  - fulafel 9y ago
    Seems it's only the free updates that are limited to 1 year with Starter - you can keep using it forever. I wonder how/if they limit you getting a new Starter the next year? Anyone know the details? Even if this drives you to the $1/day edition, that should cover a lot of small projects. Especially as you don't have to keep it running 24/7 during development.
- dh-g 9y ago
  @gonewest covered why the starter isn't ideal. I have played with the starter but compared to when I worked for a company that did have a license its like a different product. This makes it hard to select it for small projects because you know you'd have to pay the 5k or switch to something else if you ever wanted to scale. 1$ a day I think is still a bit high for a non-profit driven side project, but definitely an welcome improvement.
- cls59 9y ago
  What if the deployment model of my "small project" is on-prem operation by end users? How do I evaluate the usefulness of Datomic without forcing those users into a license purchase or going through the up-front cost of buying a license that allows redistribution?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

This looks great, I really like datomic but its licensing is preventative for small projects. Hope this helps it get more love and community attention.

by dh-g 9y ago

This looks great, I really like datomic but its licensing is preventative for small projects. Hope this helps it get more love and community attention.

fulafel 9y ago

Can you expand on this, what do you find wanting with the various choices? "Small project" can mean very different things between 0 and 10M$ budgets, but there seem to be a lot of options reaching to the low end, even the free Starter edition sounds pretty capable.

ledgerdev 9y ago
For me a small project would generally mean a clojure web app with a couple hundred users, a clojure admin webapp used only occasionally, and a back end cron job that runs every 5 minutes or so and does the back end work. Any rough guesses what we are looking at to run this monthly using the Solo topology on aws?
- stuarthalloway 9y ago
  That should fit easily in the Solo Topology at about $1/day.
  - ledgerdev 9y ago
    Yes, but I was wondering how much memory would be needed for each of the other apps (web/admin/cron) connecting to the Solo. Would they require a full JVM peer, with a couple gig of memory each, right?
    - stuarthalloway 9y ago
      Cloud uses clients, not peers, so those apps can be much more lightweight. I have tested down to 128M per Clojure (JVM) client, which is an order of magnitude less mem than a typical peer.
gonewest 9y ago
Suppose you have an open source or hobby project. The Free Edition has limitations that impact how you would write code -- it supports only the "peer" API and not the "client" API, and is restricted in terms of backend storage choices and number of peers. So while it's very likely true there's perfect API compatibility when you want to step up to a paid edition, it makes you design to the artificial limitations they've used to set apart "free" from "paid". Indeed, it's also not the recommended way to learn. The Datomic team says: "If you are trying Datomic for the first time, we recommend that you begin with a client library." In other words, the Free Edition doesn't include the client library that they recommend you try first. If you step up to the Starter Edition you have full functionality and free updates but only for the first year. Beyond that, you start paying. Either you run in Cloud (as low as $1/day) or you purchase the on-prem Pro Edition ($5000/year). Don't get me wrong. Cognitect has the right to charge whatever they like, and bundle features however they like. It's their intellectual property and they made the investment to create it. But if you're building a hobby project then even $1/day may be more than you want to spend, and/or more than you want to impose on outside contributors to your codebase.
- fulafel 9y ago
  Seems it's only the free updates that are limited to 1 year with Starter - you can keep using it forever. I wonder how/if they limit you getting a new Starter the next year? Anyone know the details? Even if this drives you to the $1/day edition, that should cover a lot of small projects. Especially as you don't have to keep it running 24/7 during development.
dh-g 9y ago
@gonewest covered why the starter isn't ideal. I have played with the starter but compared to when I worked for a company that did have a license its like a different product. This makes it hard to select it for small projects because you know you'd have to pay the 5k or switch to something else if you ever wanted to scale. 1$ a day I think is still a bit high for a non-profit driven side project, but definitely an welcome improvement.
cls59 9y ago
What if the deployment model of my "small project" is on-prem operation by end users? How do I evaluate the usefulness of Datomic without forcing those users into a license purchase or going through the up-front cost of buying a license that allows redistribution?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]