4 ms·

Can Heroku (YC W08) Become the Official Cloud of Facebook Apps?

16 points by hshah 16y ago

d0m 16y ago
A bit out of subject but... the design of the overall Heroku website is just fantastic. For every new sections added, I'm always amazed by how the page looks great.
- andymoe 16y ago
  It is a great design except when you try and enter your credit card late at night and have to think about your expiration date because it's on your card as 03/13 and they make you translate it to March 2013 instead of just putting the numbers in front of the month drop down. Then you have to make sure the CC number is entered with or without the dashes - I don't remember which. Then after you mess up the CC format they reset the expiration date back to the defaults and you don't notice and then have to start all over again for a third time. Great design - except for the part where you try and pay them. I emailed them about it but I guess they have better things to do or don't want to offend their designers sensibility.
  - seaofclouds 16y ago
    good idea. we've created a ticket for this request.
    - andymoe 16y ago
      Future me from 2013 thanks you...
- seaofclouds 16y ago
  thanks.
benatkin 16y ago
Today I heard of http://phpfog.com/ http://phpfog.com/ which might be good for Facebook apps too. I think the headline is a bit linkbaitish, especially because the bundle is so specific. It's not just Heroku+Facebook. If you take away RPM and use something else, the bundle is no longer cheaper. So it's for people who want Heroku+Facebook+RPM.
nickpinkston 16y ago
I wonder what the split between apps using the free instance and the rest of their products is? Are 90K of the apps just free accounts? I bet 5K are just people who went through RailsTutorial.org... Still though - Heroku has a great service, and deserve their props.
- Aqua_Geek 16y ago
  I imagine the breakdown is pretty heavily weighted toward free accounts. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if 90% or so are free - I know I have a few projects on there that are mostly idle deployments of weekend tinkering. Personally, I haven't made anything yet that is "big" enough (ie generating enough traffic/data) to warrant me taking the leap to a paid account. That being said, their infrastructure is such that I imagine free accounts only hurt them from a business perspective if they're consuming a lot of resources (bandwidth, processor time). And even then, if that is the case the user has probably already upgraded to a paid account. The overhead for idle projects is low, as apps are spun up on demand and killed for inactivity. As you said, it's a hell of a service. heroku create myawesomeapp git push heroku master Doesn't get much easier than that!
adaml_623 16y ago
Well I like Heroku a lot but I think non Ruby Facebook apps are allowed as well. Aren't they?
- benatkin 16y ago
  Certainly. Facebook uses PHP, so it would be odd for them to support only Ruby.

16 points by hshah 16y ago

d0m 16y ago

A bit out of subject but... the design of the overall Heroku website is just fantastic. For every new sections added, I'm always amazed by how the page looks great.

andymoe 16y ago
It is a great design except when you try and enter your credit card late at night and have to think about your expiration date because it's on your card as 03/13 and they make you translate it to March 2013 instead of just putting the numbers in front of the month drop down. Then you have to make sure the CC number is entered with or without the dashes - I don't remember which. Then after you mess up the CC format they reset the expiration date back to the defaults and you don't notice and then have to start all over again for a third time. Great design - except for the part where you try and pay them. I emailed them about it but I guess they have better things to do or don't want to offend their designers sensibility.
- seaofclouds 16y ago
  good idea. we've created a ticket for this request.
  - andymoe 16y ago
    Future me from 2013 thanks you...
seaofclouds 16y ago
thanks.

benatkin 16y ago

Today I heard of http://phpfog.com/ http://phpfog.com/ which might be good for Facebook apps too. I think the headline is a bit linkbaitish, especially because the bundle is so specific. It's not just Heroku+Facebook. If you take away RPM and use something else, the bundle is no longer cheaper. So it's for people who want Heroku+Facebook+RPM.

nickpinkston 16y ago

I wonder what the split between apps using the free instance and the rest of their products is? Are 90K of the apps just free accounts? I bet 5K are just people who went through RailsTutorial.org... Still though - Heroku has a great service, and deserve their props.

Aqua_Geek 16y ago
I imagine the breakdown is pretty heavily weighted toward free accounts. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if 90% or so are free - I know I have a few projects on there that are mostly idle deployments of weekend tinkering. Personally, I haven't made anything yet that is "big" enough (ie generating enough traffic/data) to warrant me taking the leap to a paid account. That being said, their infrastructure is such that I imagine free accounts only hurt them from a business perspective if they're consuming a lot of resources (bandwidth, processor time). And even then, if that is the case the user has probably already upgraded to a paid account. The overhead for idle projects is low, as apps are spun up on demand and killed for inactivity. As you said, it's a hell of a service. heroku create myawesomeapp git push heroku master Doesn't get much easier than that!

adaml_623 16y ago

Well I like Heroku a lot but I think non Ruby Facebook apps are allowed as well. Aren't they?

benatkin 16y ago
Certainly. Facebook uses PHP, so it would be odd for them to support only Ruby.