19 ms·

Netlify Dev

873 points by cift 7y ago

gk1 7y ago
More context in this blog post: https://www.netlify.com/blog/2019/04/09/netlify-dev--our-entire-platform-right-on-your-laptop/ https://www.netlify.com/blog/2019/04/09/netlify-dev--our-ent...
colinsidoti 7y ago
This is exciting news. How do you see `netlify dev` comparing to `firebase serve`? The `--live` feature sounds great and I can imagine the config variables are handled better, but otherwise I'm anticipating a similar experience. Is that correct or am I missing something core?
prolepunk 7y ago
My friends have used netlify for dev deployments, and it worked out pretty well as a hosted solution. For this product I'm wondering what does this give over, running setup and deployment scripts locally? Or running a VM connected to CI server that would run test and production deployment?
- benmanns 7y ago
  The dev command includes support for some of their edge logic (redirects, proxying) and functions with first class support.
- gk1 7y ago
  For one, there is nothing to configure with Netlify Dev.
  - prolepunk 7y ago
    But the configuration needs to come from somewhere, like existing netlify config? I noticed that one of the features mentioned is this -- > Netlify Dev automatically detects common tools like Gatsby, Hugo, Jekyll, React Static, Eleventy, and more, providing a zero-config setup for your local dev server. If your framework supported by netlify, just plop the projects with no configuration. I found one or two Python projects supported by netlify -- https://www.netlify.com/tags/python/ https://www.netlify.com/tags/python/ It looks like Netlify caters to frontend development, as far as backend, mostly static site generators supported. I would try this out for Vue.js
lucasverra 7y ago
Is this like working/collaborating on glitch.com/codesandbox (auto building, hot reloading) BUT being able to do it offline (train,plane dev) and then just push with one command ? I guess i can see the value since i do realise im dependant to my internets connection to do some dev this last days (im a hacky ceo).
pcr910303 7y ago
I instantly thought of the incomplete/error prone Zeit Now dev that was introduced a few weeks ago. If this(Netlify Dev) can replicate the entire system stably I might move on to Netlify Edge. Replicating and testing is a pretty big deal :-) Offtopic, but can anyone explain the differences between Zeit Now v2 and Netlify Edge?
- k__ 7y ago
  Yes, I have the feeling the whole "replicate locally" goes in the wrong direction. You're just lying to yourself when saying local is the same as cloud...
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Why? They're just computers, what makes your local machine that different from a Netlify server?
    - steve76 7y ago
      Some npms require binaries, like jq or sed, and you could have a different glibc.
    - k__ 7y ago
      Because functions are small self-contained stateless bits of code, they don't need much testing by themselves. You need to test them with the services they are using and replicating your whole cloud infrastructure locally is nearly impossible.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        Maybe they'll tell me I'm wrong, but Netlify strikes me as not targeting people who need a "whole cloud infrastructure" (since they don't offer many services), but a static site with a few simple backend functions.
        7y ago
Eiriksmal 7y ago
Massive respect to the Netlify team. I played around with having my static site hosted by them (for free!) and got only a modicum of extra performance from a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet. With this ngrok competitor making it easier to experiment with lambdas/serverless technologies, they're creating a compelling reason to use them for production builds.
- SahAssar 7y ago
  How is this a ngrok competitor?
  - gk1 7y ago
    Netlify Dev has a live sharing feature to let others view the site on your local environment.
tln 7y ago
Great move by Netlify.. they offer a lot of features such as asset optimization or authentication that can now be evaluated locally. Currently I use netlify's redirects in production and maintain equivalent nginx configs for dev parity and a fallback just in case. I'm super happy with the netlify build/edge products.
d--b 7y ago
I have no idea what this does. Site generator? functions? edge logic? What?
- tobr 7y ago
  Sounds like you should start by reading about what Netlify does.
- icebraining 7y ago
  It runs their platform on your laptop. If you want to know what "their platform" is, you can just click on the Products link. Essentially, it takes your code (from a repository), runs a build command (if configured), and serves the result over HTTP on some domain.
  - mattfrommars 7y ago
    Isn't this something which you can do with Jenkins? Pull code from Github and deploy it on S3 bucket? I learned Jenkins creating the pipeline to AWS in less than a day.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Yes, but here you don't need to manage a Jenkins installation.
      - mattfrommars 7y ago
        Right. But in this system, I'll need to manage Netlify.
        qfarhan 7y ago
        To be honest, there is nothing to manage in Netlify. Just first time connect the git repo during sign up procedure. Additional benefits (at least for starter) are 1 click SSL management. They also provide functions and form, but I have not used them so not aware of how useful they are. :) Sure they are not a huge improvement compared to your setup. But streamlining the procedure for someone not familiar with the pipeline is a great benefit.
joduplessis 7y ago
This is brilliant! I like Netlify a lot. A lot of my day to day infrastructure work doesn't rely on them, but I have used them for small sites here and there. Solid company!
kadendogthing 7y ago
I use netlify for about 6 out of 7 sites I manage for myself and family. The last one I have on linode purely out of laziness. Netlify absolutely kills it with their entire suite of offerings. I highly highly recommend people try it out if they haven't yet.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  I was blown away by how polished it was once I finally tried it a few months ago. I set up auto-deploy on push to Github + build command in like two clicks for all of my projects and never looked back. Their free tier is probably too generous though. I know someone running the biggest website in a massive niche and they are serving their SPA for free from Netlify.
  - frosted-flakes 7y ago
    Well, without their free tier they probably wouldn't be as big as they are today. It's the same model as freemium apps: get big, then start charging.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      You justified a free tier but not why it's still free for one of the most trafficked websites in the world. ;)
      - kamkha 7y ago
        Their free tier has a 100GB/month bandwidth cap — surely the most trafficked websites in the world would very quickly hit that limit, no? Your point stands nonetheless — they could certainly be losing money on certain large users of their free tier. Serving relatively static content has gotten extremely cheap across the board, though, and like the parent said, they might be benefiting from the pricing by more indirect means.
        graemebenzie 7y ago
zframroze 7y ago
Great stuff!
Slippery_John 7y ago
I part run a non-profit site on Netlify and the experience is pretty great. The real killer bit for me has been their GitHub integration where they will render a preview build of any PRs put up to the site.
syntaxing 7y ago
Netlify service is ridiculously awesome. I host my site there for free and had some cert errors [1]. I messaged support and they had it fixed in less than 48 hrs. I seriously recommend others to use them rather than using Medium for their own content. [1] www.powu3.com
- amrrs 7y ago
  Lately, I've been thinking to Port my Medium posts to Netlify. Could you please suggest any reason why you specifically mentioned this case ?
  - syntaxing 7y ago
    Better control and domain ownership. Especially since setting up a static site is super easy with Netlify. Set up a repo in either GitHub and Gitlab and Netlify will take care of the rest. The biggest downside is that it's hard to get exposure. However, it works for me since my site is just a portfolio site.
    - anderspitman 7y ago
      If you want to go further down this rabbit hole: https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - palidanx 7y ago
    I use Netlify, but one of the issues I've had for CMS is easily uploading pictures like Medium. Are there any solutions to this? I know in the github integration workflow, you have to manually upload the file and then link it which is kind of a pain if doing multiple images.
    - tln 7y ago
      Yes, netlify makes an open source CMS (single page app) which works with a bunch of static site generators. You can upload an image, edit the posts, and then the SPA will use github API to upload or edit. https://www.netlifycms.org/ https://www.netlifycms.org/ Just migrated our wordpress blog to jekyll + this. So far the content writers aren't super happy but the SEO speed scores are better :)
everdev 7y ago
Looks super cool and super happy with Netlify hosting. I just gave it a spin though and got this: Netlify Dev ◈ Starting Netlify Dev... Netlify Dev ◈ Overriding dist with setting derived from netlify.toml [dev] block: null Netlify Dev ◈ No dev server detected, using simple static server Netlify Dev ◈ Unable to determine public folder for the dev server. Setup a netlify.toml file with a [dev] section to specify your dev server settings. But the blog post and the TOML reference (https://www.netlify.com/docs/netlify-toml-reference/ https://www.netlify.com/docs/netlify-toml-reference/) don't seem to include details on what to include in the [dev] section of the TOML file to get this to work. Anyone have this tool working locally?
- bobfunk 7y ago
  Docs are still a bit rough, but the README here should help: https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin#project-detection https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin#project-detect...
- swyx 7y ago
  hello! thanks for the report! i just pushed a small patch that now has some more helpful messages.. havent ironed out all the states yet and probably need a state machine since i already cant keep everything in my head! https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin/commit/1c6df0038ce48f5899ef405c14797bf4ac905fa3 https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin/commit/1c6df00...
larrywright 7y ago
This looks interesting, but am I the only one turned off by having to ‘npm install’ to try it out?
- sjbrown 7y ago
  Yeah, I wish it were just a docker image up on the hub
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    That "just" is just your favorite alternative to "npm install". There's nothing "just" about it. Like preferring it was a pip or apt install.
    - larrywright 7y ago
      Sure there is. When I’m done looking at it, I delete the Docker image and it’s gone from my system. That’s more effort with npm. Also, the docker solution works for everything. So whether it’s a node app, or python, or Go, or Ruby... the process is the same.
      - tln 7y ago
        Getting a docker image to performantly access a local folder across platforms is a huge challenge. I love docker but it's just not good enough at handling watched folders.
  - sergiodxa 7y ago
    You could create a Docker image that runs `npm install` and upload it to the hub.
- otab111 7y ago
  Possibly. The announcement is all about the local version, so there's no way to try that out without installing it locally. However, it's the local version of a product that already exists entirely online with no need to `npm install` anything.
geoff321 7y ago
We where thinking of offering a similar service at https://staticIP.io https://staticIP.io , i just know how you can make money offering free sites ...
Touche 7y ago
Can anyone explain the elevator pitch of Netlify to me? I know it's become quite popular in the last couple of years and I can't figure out why. I don't doubt that it's good at what it does, but it seems to do the same thing as any number of services. For example, I see a lot of people talk about it for static sites. But you get free static sites through GitHub, nearly free static sites on Amazon S3. What does Netlify do special that these others don't? I'm not attempting to bash the service, I just want to understand what its killer features are.
- Kye 7y ago
  It's extremely easy if you're not a developer. You can drag a folder from your desktop and have it live with a CDN and SSL cert in seconds.
- samhh 7y ago
  I chose to rewrite my portfolio site in Gatsby and deploy it to Netlify with my custom domain pointed to it. It's a big improvement in ease of use versus how I used to do it with a Node server hosted on DigitalOcean, as good as I found their service to be. Do those other services allow you to hook up a custom domain?
- smithmayowa 7y ago
  Netlify does the whole static thing better, by being extremely focused on all things static, which makes setting up a static site on netlify way less stressful than on github and amazon, there is also the market knowledge factor, I mean github is known for hosting code repos and S3 is known for hosting files(videos and pictures), netlify meanwhile is known for static pages.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Can you point anything specific in which it is better, instead of vague things like them being more “focused”?
    - smithmayowa 7y ago
eruci 7y ago
It has a few bugs to iron out. I did a test to https://trusting-heisenberg-a82012.netlify.com/ https://trusting-heisenberg-a82012.netlify.com/ and I get "Page Not Found Looks like you've followed a broken link or entered a URL that doesn't exist on this site. Back to our site" Other than that, it is a neat idea.
rvanmil 7y ago
Fantastic service. We've moved some of our SPA's out of our Heroku infrastructure and into Netlify. The integration with GitHub (and Slack), automated builds and deploys, together with the built-in support for rewrites and a reverse proxy works great and has made our workflow easier and faster.
forrestthewoods 7y ago
I moved my blog from Medium to a static site hosted on Netlify's free. I'm really, really impressed with Netlify. A++++++ would recommend.
zwbetz 7y ago
Agreed with others, Netlify is awesome. I deploy my personal Hugo site https://zwbetz.com/ https://zwbetz.com/ to it, as well as all my Hugo themes
Lightbody 7y ago
I’m curious if anyone has used both Netlify and AWS Amplify and if they can do a quick compare and contrast? In some ways they seem very similar, but their messaging seems fairly different. Disclaimer: I’m a JAMstack n00b and the last real web app I built was “old school” where we did crazy things like keep a session token around and server the HTML, CSS, and JS from a web app. As such, I may be slow on the uptake.
- kall 7y ago
  Netlify is focused on delivering your frontend and has some light backend features added on (form submission, lambda functions, auth). But you can't run a dynamic application on just netlify, because there is no database. But you might not need a database, which I think is netlify's proposition. AWS Amplify is focused on providing you a backend (with GraphQL) powered by AWS services (dynamoDB, lambda). You can run an entire dynamic application with just AWS amplify. They also provide frontend hosting now, but that part I haven't used (oops that was your core question sorry). It seems that the CLI tool just configures S3 and CloudFront for you. This is probably much less polished then using netlify.
  - zenithm 7y ago
    Netlify has integration with FaunaDB for the database tier.
    - kall 7y ago
      FaunaDB looks like a great product for a serverless/SPA type app but I don't see how they are integrated with netlify other than they fit together well?
      - jchanimal 7y ago
        FaunaDB support is built into Netlify Dev and was shown in the Netlify CEO’s keynote at the JAMstack conf. Netlify also has one-click deploy support for including FaunaDB with your applications. For instance this sample app can be deployed almost automatically: https://github.com/sw-yx/netlify-fauna-todo https://github.com/sw-yx/netlify-fauna-todo (Disclaimer, I work for Fauna and helped with the one-click deploy integration.)
LeicaLatte 7y ago
Moved from Github Pages to Netlify this year and have never been happier. Will definitely give this a shot.
kyberias 7y ago
Quote from the page: “Decoupled web projects involve so many components. The hard part is testing all the pieces locally, together. Netlify Dev delivers this beautifully with one command.” What are these "decouples web projects" and "components" and "pieces" that are hard to test locally, together?
andrethegiant 7y ago
For those interested in the GitHub integration / preview pull request features that Netlify offers, but don't want to migrate from your current host: I'm developing a product called FeaturePeek[1] that will spin up static builds into a feature environment you can share with your team / publicly. Unlike Netlify Dev / ngrok, you don't need to be online with your feature branch checked out for others to preview it. We can run dynamic builds too, and are agnostic of your host or cloud provider because we don't focus on production deployments. On top of that, we provide some collaboration tools so you can annotate / comment directly on the build. [1] https://featurepeek.com https://featurepeek.com
- webo 7y ago
  >you don't need to be online with your feature branch checked out Can you expand on what do you mean by this?
  - andrethegiant 7y ago
    The `netlify dev --live` command opens up a tunnel to your local dev server port. If you close your laptop, the connection closes. Similarly, if you switch branches, the content of your build will change, even though the URL you've shared remains the same.
mleonhard 7y ago
This appears to be the first "Cloud Functions" service to provide tools for testing functions locally.
- siphor 7y ago
  firebase and google cloud functions?
hestefisk 7y ago
Looks a bit like Squarespace, which also offers Git based deployment. I use it for a number of client sites and it just works.
ltrcola 7y ago
Netlify has been pretty great so far. My team was able to use the promise of a super quick CMS integration with Netlify CMS to justify getting out of building another nasty WordPress site (what our editors are familiar with). The actual Netlify setup caused no trouble at all and let us seamlessly move off of GitHub Pages, and now we can put in an integrated build process with NPM or whatever else we need. Netlify CMS itself is a lot more raw but I see huge potential there, especially since it's open source. Our InfoSec folks loved the idea of content changes as commits. And the maintainers on Gitter are super open to help folks and work through changes. Already submitted a PR that was accepted and has made it into a release. And we haven't paid them anything yet, even with Google Single Sign-On integrated.
songzme 7y ago
With our existing trend of moving everything to the cloud, I wonder why development environments aren't going in the same direction as well. It has so many benefits. I code on my digital ocean server (vim and tmux) and it gives allot of the benefits that netlify mentions like streaming live. If I don't have my computer I can just borrow anyone's computer (or use a public computer in the library) to make quick fixes or even implement features, all of which will be immediately live even if I log out of the system. If my laptop is lost or damaged, I just get a replacement and pick up exactly where I left off. With tools like react native, I can also dabble with mobile development in the cloud.
- indigodaddy 7y ago
  I do similarly as you except s/DO/codenvy/
- woutr_be 7y ago
  What's your setup like? I've been looking around to set something like this up, mainly for being able to do quick fixes on the go. (Or use my iPad when I'm on holiday)
  - songzme 7y ago
    Unfortunately I don't have much to share because my setup is so simple. Literally just vim (you can find really awesome vimrc on GitHub, mines pretty messy), and tmux (simple apt install). When I visit my friends place I usually just use their computer, otherwise I'll use my MacBook pro or desktop. I don't think about setup much, I just use whatever devices around me to access and write code on my server instance.
    - woutr_be 7y ago
      Understood, for my purposes I was really looking for a more full-fletched dev environment. Being able to run a local dev server and a browser (for front-end dev). Sadly that doesn't seem to be possible on an iPad at the moment.
pkalinowski 7y ago
Netlify is amazing: 1. Free 2. Good support 3. Custom domains with SSL 4. Takes care of most important backend stuff (forms and webhooks) 5. Functions (Lambda with zero config needed) 6. Abstracts server stuff like [redirects](https://www.netlify.com/docs/redirects/ https://www.netlify.com/docs/redirects/) Lambda and redirects are the best. I can just put my scripts in a folder and they automagically work. In my LinkedIn profile my website address is not clickable, so people are copying it to browser. This gives me bogus source data, but with Netlify I can do a one-liner: `/li /?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=profile` If you go to [patrykkalinowski.com/li](https://patrykkalinowski.com/li https://patrykkalinowski.com/li) from my LI profile, you'll end up on patrykkalinowski.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=profile Zero javascript redirects, zero nginx config, zero S3 settings - one line in text file, git push and I'm done!
- reificator 7y ago
  No markdown support for links. Typically you would handle them like you would a footnote[0]. [0]: https://google.com https://google.com
- soonoutoftime 7y ago
  > 1. Free ... 4. Takes care of most important backend stuff (forms and webhooks) From my reading of https://www.netlify.com/pricing/#forms https://www.netlify.com/pricing/#forms you will need to pay $19/month/site (!) just to collect the data from 1000 form submissions. By the time you have a couple of sites like this the price is already way too much for me and anyone else with basic backend knowledge. I hope I've misunderstood.
  - kaishiro 7y ago
    To be fair, you get 100 submissions/month for free. And since you get drop in honeypots and reCAPTCHA those are typically valid submissions.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    I get far fewer than 100 submissions, and just the time it saves me getting the backend settings configured is already worth it, never mind setting up email, honeypots, etc.
Karupan 7y ago
Netlify is just fantastic! I reluctantly checked them out last year, and am now hosting 3 SPAs there. By the far the most painless platform I’ve used, with a generous free tier. Thanks to the team and great work as always!
tomludus 7y ago
The comments here are so bizzarly positive for HN. Makes me feel that this might not be all genuine.
- mbanerjeepalmer 7y ago
  Check comment history for a sample of the positive commenters? I mean, I could tell you that I too love Netlify with a passion but that would make it even more suspicious. But trust me, it's great. Try it for yourself.
- knlam 7y ago
  I mean, if you have tried Netlify before, you will know why they are loved so much
SonicSoul 7y ago
based on the comments sounds like a great framework, but wow what a bad name. sounds like some kind of mix between bug zapper and a light beer? maybe life insurance also..
thatssosid 7y ago
I recently moved my site[0] from WordPress to Netlify Used HUGO and then one of my Post regarding MacBook Thermals was trending on HN, The site had more than 12K visitors. If I had been using WordPress I could only imagine how catastrophic that would be. Though I crossed their 100GB limit. But since this was a rare spike in traffic I feel their free plan is very generous. Netlify+ static site generators is good alternative for WordPress. [0] https://bsid.io https://bsid.io
- poxrud 7y ago
  With proper caching even a $5 DO droplet would be easily able to handle this load. With caching + cdn you should be able to handle virtually any load. I personally run cloudfront in front of all of my WP sites, even the low traffic ones because the costs are negligible.
  - thatssosid 7y ago
    I agree that DO would handle the load. The con is that it costs 5$+tax. Where as netlify is free and CDN and caching is taken care by netlify. Saves time
Lowkeyloki 7y ago
I love what Netlify is doing, but I've chosen to only watch it from afar for the past few years. I used to use a similar service that I loved very much called Divshot. But Google bought them, closed it down, and absorbed some of their tech for parts of the Firebase platform. Now I use NearlyFreeSpeech.NET exactly because I do have to pay for it. I'm not sure how Netlify is able to offer their free tier. But I've learned the hard way that if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer.
huxflux 7y ago
Geocities 2.0
huxflux 7y ago
Can we please stop the personal promote-jerking?
clrsky 7y ago
meanwhile the link is down..
jpincheira 7y ago
We use Netlify for https://standups.io https://standups.io and we still are not paying a penny for their service. It works for our different environments, creates deploy previews out of every branch, supports split testing, and we even use it as a CI for our ReactJS app using Cypress! It's so painless and reliable, we just love it.
- skrebbel 7y ago
  Can you explain more? I mean, I see that you're essentially a video service. Don't you have a backend? Don't people login? How do you handle all that on a static site host?
  - jpincheira 7y ago
    Sure, happy to expand on it. You're right, as a video service, we cannot do everything through them, we use our own encoder service with AWS Lambda, and manage users through a NodeJS app. And Netlify is a very important part of our stack, as it holds our main client app, which connects to these other parts of our stack. Btw, congrats on TalkJS! Looks amazing.
elcomet 7y ago
My issue with netlify is the lack of data or analytics about traffic. I cannot even see the number of visits ! That's why I use GitHub + cloudflare.
- navs 7y ago
  Is that something that could be solved with Google Analytics, Mixpanel?
  - elcomet 7y ago
    Google analytics gives very bad results, given the number of people using content blockers. I just want the number of unique visitors, I don't care about tracking or anything.
pembrook 7y ago
Anybody found a good CMS solution for static sites? I love everything about gatsby/Hugo/etc on Netlify but the lack of good CMS with out of the box SEO tools for writers to easily publish is a no go for my clients. Tried Netlify CMS and it unfortunately required way too much work to compete with the full featured Wordpress setup my editorial clients are used to.
- navs 7y ago
  https://forestry.io/ https://forestry.io/ (hugo) https://www.contentful.com/ https://www.contentful.com/ (used this with jekyll)
  - codemati 7y ago
    +1 for Contentful with Gatsby. Painless setup.

873 points by cift 7y ago

gk1 7y ago

More context in this blog post: https://www.netlify.com/blog/2019/04/09/netlify-dev--our-entire-platform-right-on-your-laptop/ https://www.netlify.com/blog/2019/04/09/netlify-dev--our-ent...

colinsidoti 7y ago

This is exciting news. How do you see `netlify dev` comparing to `firebase serve`? The `--live` feature sounds great and I can imagine the config variables are handled better, but otherwise I'm anticipating a similar experience. Is that correct or am I missing something core?

prolepunk 7y ago

My friends have used netlify for dev deployments, and it worked out pretty well as a hosted solution. For this product I'm wondering what does this give over, running setup and deployment scripts locally? Or running a VM connected to CI server that would run test and production deployment?

benmanns 7y ago
The dev command includes support for some of their edge logic (redirects, proxying) and functions with first class support.
gk1 7y ago
For one, there is nothing to configure with Netlify Dev.
- prolepunk 7y ago
  But the configuration needs to come from somewhere, like existing netlify config? I noticed that one of the features mentioned is this -- > Netlify Dev automatically detects common tools like Gatsby, Hugo, Jekyll, React Static, Eleventy, and more, providing a zero-config setup for your local dev server. If your framework supported by netlify, just plop the projects with no configuration. I found one or two Python projects supported by netlify -- https://www.netlify.com/tags/python/ https://www.netlify.com/tags/python/ It looks like Netlify caters to frontend development, as far as backend, mostly static site generators supported. I would try this out for Vue.js

lucasverra 7y ago

Is this like working/collaborating on glitch.com/codesandbox (auto building, hot reloading) BUT being able to do it offline (train,plane dev) and then just push with one command ? I guess i can see the value since i do realise im dependant to my internets connection to do some dev this last days (im a hacky ceo).

pcr910303 7y ago

I instantly thought of the incomplete/error prone Zeit Now dev that was introduced a few weeks ago. If this(Netlify Dev) can replicate the entire system stably I might move on to Netlify Edge. Replicating and testing is a pretty big deal :-) Offtopic, but can anyone explain the differences between Zeit Now v2 and Netlify Edge?

k__ 7y ago
Yes, I have the feeling the whole "replicate locally" goes in the wrong direction. You're just lying to yourself when saying local is the same as cloud...
- icebraining 7y ago
  Why? They're just computers, what makes your local machine that different from a Netlify server?
  - steve76 7y ago
    Some npms require binaries, like jq or sed, and you could have a different glibc.
  - k__ 7y ago
    Because functions are small self-contained stateless bits of code, they don't need much testing by themselves. You need to test them with the services they are using and replicating your whole cloud infrastructure locally is nearly impossible.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Maybe they'll tell me I'm wrong, but Netlify strikes me as not targeting people who need a "whole cloud infrastructure" (since they don't offer many services), but a static site with a few simple backend functions.
      - 7y ago

Eiriksmal 7y ago

Massive respect to the Netlify team. I played around with having my static site hosted by them (for free!) and got only a modicum of extra performance from a $5/mo Digital Ocean droplet. With this ngrok competitor making it easier to experiment with lambdas/serverless technologies, they're creating a compelling reason to use them for production builds.

SahAssar 7y ago
How is this a ngrok competitor?
- gk1 7y ago
  Netlify Dev has a live sharing feature to let others view the site on your local environment.

tln 7y ago

Great move by Netlify.. they offer a lot of features such as asset optimization or authentication that can now be evaluated locally. Currently I use netlify's redirects in production and maintain equivalent nginx configs for dev parity and a fallback just in case. I'm super happy with the netlify build/edge products.

d--b 7y ago

I have no idea what this does. Site generator? functions? edge logic? What?

tobr 7y ago
Sounds like you should start by reading about what Netlify does.
icebraining 7y ago
It runs their platform on your laptop. If you want to know what "their platform" is, you can just click on the Products link. Essentially, it takes your code (from a repository), runs a build command (if configured), and serves the result over HTTP on some domain.
- mattfrommars 7y ago
  Isn't this something which you can do with Jenkins? Pull code from Github and deploy it on S3 bucket? I learned Jenkins creating the pipeline to AWS in less than a day.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Yes, but here you don't need to manage a Jenkins installation.
    - mattfrommars 7y ago
      Right. But in this system, I'll need to manage Netlify.
      - qfarhan 7y ago
        To be honest, there is nothing to manage in Netlify. Just first time connect the git repo during sign up procedure. Additional benefits (at least for starter) are 1 click SSL management. They also provide functions and form, but I have not used them so not aware of how useful they are. :) Sure they are not a huge improvement compared to your setup. But streamlining the procedure for someone not familiar with the pipeline is a great benefit.

joduplessis 7y ago

This is brilliant! I like Netlify a lot. A lot of my day to day infrastructure work doesn't rely on them, but I have used them for small sites here and there. Solid company!

kadendogthing 7y ago

I use netlify for about 6 out of 7 sites I manage for myself and family. The last one I have on linode purely out of laziness. Netlify absolutely kills it with their entire suite of offerings. I highly highly recommend people try it out if they haven't yet.

hombre_fatal 7y ago
I was blown away by how polished it was once I finally tried it a few months ago. I set up auto-deploy on push to Github + build command in like two clicks for all of my projects and never looked back. Their free tier is probably too generous though. I know someone running the biggest website in a massive niche and they are serving their SPA for free from Netlify.
- frosted-flakes 7y ago
  Well, without their free tier they probably wouldn't be as big as they are today. It's the same model as freemium apps: get big, then start charging.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    You justified a free tier but not why it's still free for one of the most trafficked websites in the world. ;)
    - kamkha 7y ago
      Their free tier has a 100GB/month bandwidth cap — surely the most trafficked websites in the world would very quickly hit that limit, no? Your point stands nonetheless — they could certainly be losing money on certain large users of their free tier. Serving relatively static content has gotten extremely cheap across the board, though, and like the parent said, they might be benefiting from the pricing by more indirect means.
      - graemebenzie 7y ago

zframroze 7y ago

Great stuff!

Slippery_John 7y ago

I part run a non-profit site on Netlify and the experience is pretty great. The real killer bit for me has been their GitHub integration where they will render a preview build of any PRs put up to the site.

syntaxing 7y ago

Netlify service is ridiculously awesome. I host my site there for free and had some cert errors [1]. I messaged support and they had it fixed in less than 48 hrs. I seriously recommend others to use them rather than using Medium for their own content. [1] www.powu3.com

amrrs 7y ago
Lately, I've been thinking to Port my Medium posts to Netlify. Could you please suggest any reason why you specifically mentioned this case ?
- syntaxing 7y ago
  Better control and domain ownership. Especially since setting up a static site is super easy with Netlify. Set up a repo in either GitHub and Gitlab and Netlify will take care of the rest. The biggest downside is that it's hard to get exposure. However, it works for me since my site is just a portfolio site.
  - anderspitman 7y ago
    If you want to go further down this rabbit hole: https://indieweb.org/POSSE https://indieweb.org/POSSE
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- palidanx 7y ago
  I use Netlify, but one of the issues I've had for CMS is easily uploading pictures like Medium. Are there any solutions to this? I know in the github integration workflow, you have to manually upload the file and then link it which is kind of a pain if doing multiple images.
  - tln 7y ago
    Yes, netlify makes an open source CMS (single page app) which works with a bunch of static site generators. You can upload an image, edit the posts, and then the SPA will use github API to upload or edit. https://www.netlifycms.org/ https://www.netlifycms.org/ Just migrated our wordpress blog to jekyll + this. So far the content writers aren't super happy but the SEO speed scores are better :)

everdev 7y ago

Looks super cool and super happy with Netlify hosting. I just gave it a spin though and got this: Netlify Dev ◈ Starting Netlify Dev... Netlify Dev ◈ Overriding dist with setting derived from netlify.toml [dev] block: null Netlify Dev ◈ No dev server detected, using simple static server Netlify Dev ◈ Unable to determine public folder for the dev server. Setup a netlify.toml file with a [dev] section to specify your dev server settings. But the blog post and the TOML reference (https://www.netlify.com/docs/netlify-toml-reference/ https://www.netlify.com/docs/netlify-toml-reference/) don't seem to include details on what to include in the [dev] section of the TOML file to get this to work. Anyone have this tool working locally?

bobfunk 7y ago
Docs are still a bit rough, but the README here should help: https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin#project-detection https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin#project-detect...
swyx 7y ago
hello! thanks for the report! i just pushed a small patch that now has some more helpful messages.. havent ironed out all the states yet and probably need a state machine since i already cant keep everything in my head! https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin/commit/1c6df0038ce48f5899ef405c14797bf4ac905fa3 https://github.com/netlify/netlify-dev-plugin/commit/1c6df00...

larrywright 7y ago

This looks interesting, but am I the only one turned off by having to ‘npm install’ to try it out?

sjbrown 7y ago
Yeah, I wish it were just a docker image up on the hub
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  That "just" is just your favorite alternative to "npm install". There's nothing "just" about it. Like preferring it was a pip or apt install.
  - larrywright 7y ago
    Sure there is. When I’m done looking at it, I delete the Docker image and it’s gone from my system. That’s more effort with npm. Also, the docker solution works for everything. So whether it’s a node app, or python, or Go, or Ruby... the process is the same.
    - tln 7y ago
      Getting a docker image to performantly access a local folder across platforms is a huge challenge. I love docker but it's just not good enough at handling watched folders.
- sergiodxa 7y ago
  You could create a Docker image that runs `npm install` and upload it to the hub.
otab111 7y ago
Possibly. The announcement is all about the local version, so there's no way to try that out without installing it locally. However, it's the local version of a product that already exists entirely online with no need to `npm install` anything.

geoff321 7y ago

We where thinking of offering a similar service at https://staticIP.io https://staticIP.io , i just know how you can make money offering free sites ...

Touche 7y ago

Can anyone explain the elevator pitch of Netlify to me? I know it's become quite popular in the last couple of years and I can't figure out why. I don't doubt that it's good at what it does, but it seems to do the same thing as any number of services. For example, I see a lot of people talk about it for static sites. But you get free static sites through GitHub, nearly free static sites on Amazon S3. What does Netlify do special that these others don't? I'm not attempting to bash the service, I just want to understand what its killer features are.

Kye 7y ago
It's extremely easy if you're not a developer. You can drag a folder from your desktop and have it live with a CDN and SSL cert in seconds.
samhh 7y ago
I chose to rewrite my portfolio site in Gatsby and deploy it to Netlify with my custom domain pointed to it. It's a big improvement in ease of use versus how I used to do it with a Node server hosted on DigitalOcean, as good as I found their service to be. Do those other services allow you to hook up a custom domain?
smithmayowa 7y ago
Netlify does the whole static thing better, by being extremely focused on all things static, which makes setting up a static site on netlify way less stressful than on github and amazon, there is also the market knowledge factor, I mean github is known for hosting code repos and S3 is known for hosting files(videos and pictures), netlify meanwhile is known for static pages.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Can you point anything specific in which it is better, instead of vague things like them being more “focused”?
  - smithmayowa 7y ago

eruci 7y ago

It has a few bugs to iron out. I did a test to https://trusting-heisenberg-a82012.netlify.com/ https://trusting-heisenberg-a82012.netlify.com/ and I get "Page Not Found Looks like you've followed a broken link or entered a URL that doesn't exist on this site. Back to our site" Other than that, it is a neat idea.

rvanmil 7y ago

Fantastic service. We've moved some of our SPA's out of our Heroku infrastructure and into Netlify. The integration with GitHub (and Slack), automated builds and deploys, together with the built-in support for rewrites and a reverse proxy works great and has made our workflow easier and faster.

forrestthewoods 7y ago

I moved my blog from Medium to a static site hosted on Netlify's free. I'm really, really impressed with Netlify. A++++++ would recommend.

zwbetz 7y ago

Agreed with others, Netlify is awesome. I deploy my personal Hugo site https://zwbetz.com/ https://zwbetz.com/ to it, as well as all my Hugo themes

Lightbody 7y ago

I’m curious if anyone has used both Netlify and AWS Amplify and if they can do a quick compare and contrast? In some ways they seem very similar, but their messaging seems fairly different. Disclaimer: I’m a JAMstack n00b and the last real web app I built was “old school” where we did crazy things like keep a session token around and server the HTML, CSS, and JS from a web app. As such, I may be slow on the uptake.

kall 7y ago
Netlify is focused on delivering your frontend and has some light backend features added on (form submission, lambda functions, auth). But you can't run a dynamic application on just netlify, because there is no database. But you might not need a database, which I think is netlify's proposition. AWS Amplify is focused on providing you a backend (with GraphQL) powered by AWS services (dynamoDB, lambda). You can run an entire dynamic application with just AWS amplify. They also provide frontend hosting now, but that part I haven't used (oops that was your core question sorry). It seems that the CLI tool just configures S3 and CloudFront for you. This is probably much less polished then using netlify.
- zenithm 7y ago
  Netlify has integration with FaunaDB for the database tier.
  - kall 7y ago
    FaunaDB looks like a great product for a serverless/SPA type app but I don't see how they are integrated with netlify other than they fit together well?
    - jchanimal 7y ago
      FaunaDB support is built into Netlify Dev and was shown in the Netlify CEO’s keynote at the JAMstack conf. Netlify also has one-click deploy support for including FaunaDB with your applications. For instance this sample app can be deployed almost automatically: https://github.com/sw-yx/netlify-fauna-todo https://github.com/sw-yx/netlify-fauna-todo (Disclaimer, I work for Fauna and helped with the one-click deploy integration.)

LeicaLatte 7y ago

Moved from Github Pages to Netlify this year and have never been happier. Will definitely give this a shot.

kyberias 7y ago

Quote from the page: “Decoupled web projects involve so many components. The hard part is testing all the pieces locally, together. Netlify Dev delivers this beautifully with one command.” What are these "decouples web projects" and "components" and "pieces" that are hard to test locally, together?

andrethegiant 7y ago

For those interested in the GitHub integration / preview pull request features that Netlify offers, but don't want to migrate from your current host: I'm developing a product called FeaturePeek[1] that will spin up static builds into a feature environment you can share with your team / publicly. Unlike Netlify Dev / ngrok, you don't need to be online with your feature branch checked out for others to preview it. We can run dynamic builds too, and are agnostic of your host or cloud provider because we don't focus on production deployments. On top of that, we provide some collaboration tools so you can annotate / comment directly on the build. [1] https://featurepeek.com https://featurepeek.com

webo 7y ago
>you don't need to be online with your feature branch checked out Can you expand on what do you mean by this?
- andrethegiant 7y ago
  The `netlify dev --live` command opens up a tunnel to your local dev server port. If you close your laptop, the connection closes. Similarly, if you switch branches, the content of your build will change, even though the URL you've shared remains the same.

mleonhard 7y ago

This appears to be the first "Cloud Functions" service to provide tools for testing functions locally.

siphor 7y ago
firebase and google cloud functions?

hestefisk 7y ago

Looks a bit like Squarespace, which also offers Git based deployment. I use it for a number of client sites and it just works.

ltrcola 7y ago

Netlify has been pretty great so far. My team was able to use the promise of a super quick CMS integration with Netlify CMS to justify getting out of building another nasty WordPress site (what our editors are familiar with). The actual Netlify setup caused no trouble at all and let us seamlessly move off of GitHub Pages, and now we can put in an integrated build process with NPM or whatever else we need. Netlify CMS itself is a lot more raw but I see huge potential there, especially since it's open source. Our InfoSec folks loved the idea of content changes as commits. And the maintainers on Gitter are super open to help folks and work through changes. Already submitted a PR that was accepted and has made it into a release. And we haven't paid them anything yet, even with Google Single Sign-On integrated.

songzme 7y ago

With our existing trend of moving everything to the cloud, I wonder why development environments aren't going in the same direction as well. It has so many benefits. I code on my digital ocean server (vim and tmux) and it gives allot of the benefits that netlify mentions like streaming live. If I don't have my computer I can just borrow anyone's computer (or use a public computer in the library) to make quick fixes or even implement features, all of which will be immediately live even if I log out of the system. If my laptop is lost or damaged, I just get a replacement and pick up exactly where I left off. With tools like react native, I can also dabble with mobile development in the cloud.

indigodaddy 7y ago
I do similarly as you except s/DO/codenvy/
woutr_be 7y ago
What's your setup like? I've been looking around to set something like this up, mainly for being able to do quick fixes on the go. (Or use my iPad when I'm on holiday)
- songzme 7y ago
  Unfortunately I don't have much to share because my setup is so simple. Literally just vim (you can find really awesome vimrc on GitHub, mines pretty messy), and tmux (simple apt install). When I visit my friends place I usually just use their computer, otherwise I'll use my MacBook pro or desktop. I don't think about setup much, I just use whatever devices around me to access and write code on my server instance.
  - woutr_be 7y ago
    Understood, for my purposes I was really looking for a more full-fletched dev environment. Being able to run a local dev server and a browser (for front-end dev). Sadly that doesn't seem to be possible on an iPad at the moment.

pkalinowski 7y ago

Netlify is amazing: 1. Free 2. Good support 3. Custom domains with SSL 4. Takes care of most important backend stuff (forms and webhooks) 5. Functions (Lambda with zero config needed) 6. Abstracts server stuff like [redirects](https://www.netlify.com/docs/redirects/ https://www.netlify.com/docs/redirects/) Lambda and redirects are the best. I can just put my scripts in a folder and they automagically work. In my LinkedIn profile my website address is not clickable, so people are copying it to browser. This gives me bogus source data, but with Netlify I can do a one-liner: `/li /?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=profile` If you go to [patrykkalinowski.com/li](https://patrykkalinowski.com/li https://patrykkalinowski.com/li) from my LI profile, you'll end up on patrykkalinowski.com/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=profile Zero javascript redirects, zero nginx config, zero S3 settings - one line in text file, git push and I'm done!

reificator 7y ago
No markdown support for links. Typically you would handle them like you would a footnote[0]. [0]: https://google.com https://google.com
soonoutoftime 7y ago
> 1. Free ... 4. Takes care of most important backend stuff (forms and webhooks) From my reading of https://www.netlify.com/pricing/#forms https://www.netlify.com/pricing/#forms you will need to pay $19/month/site (!) just to collect the data from 1000 form submissions. By the time you have a couple of sites like this the price is already way too much for me and anyone else with basic backend knowledge. I hope I've misunderstood.
- kaishiro 7y ago
  To be fair, you get 100 submissions/month for free. And since you get drop in honeypots and reCAPTCHA those are typically valid submissions.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I get far fewer than 100 submissions, and just the time it saves me getting the backend settings configured is already worth it, never mind setting up email, honeypots, etc.

Karupan 7y ago

Netlify is just fantastic! I reluctantly checked them out last year, and am now hosting 3 SPAs there. By the far the most painless platform I’ve used, with a generous free tier. Thanks to the team and great work as always!

tomludus 7y ago

The comments here are so bizzarly positive for HN. Makes me feel that this might not be all genuine.

mbanerjeepalmer 7y ago
Check comment history for a sample of the positive commenters? I mean, I could tell you that I too love Netlify with a passion but that would make it even more suspicious. But trust me, it's great. Try it for yourself.
knlam 7y ago
I mean, if you have tried Netlify before, you will know why they are loved so much

SonicSoul 7y ago

based on the comments sounds like a great framework, but wow what a bad name. sounds like some kind of mix between bug zapper and a light beer? maybe life insurance also..

thatssosid 7y ago

I recently moved my site[0] from WordPress to Netlify Used HUGO and then one of my Post regarding MacBook Thermals was trending on HN, The site had more than 12K visitors. If I had been using WordPress I could only imagine how catastrophic that would be. Though I crossed their 100GB limit. But since this was a rare spike in traffic I feel their free plan is very generous. Netlify+ static site generators is good alternative for WordPress. [0] https://bsid.io https://bsid.io

poxrud 7y ago
With proper caching even a $5 DO droplet would be easily able to handle this load. With caching + cdn you should be able to handle virtually any load. I personally run cloudfront in front of all of my WP sites, even the low traffic ones because the costs are negligible.
- thatssosid 7y ago
  I agree that DO would handle the load. The con is that it costs 5$+tax. Where as netlify is free and CDN and caching is taken care by netlify. Saves time

Lowkeyloki 7y ago

I love what Netlify is doing, but I've chosen to only watch it from afar for the past few years. I used to use a similar service that I loved very much called Divshot. But Google bought them, closed it down, and absorbed some of their tech for parts of the Firebase platform. Now I use NearlyFreeSpeech.NET exactly because I do have to pay for it. I'm not sure how Netlify is able to offer their free tier. But I've learned the hard way that if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer.

huxflux 7y ago

Geocities 2.0

huxflux 7y ago

Can we please stop the personal promote-jerking?

clrsky 7y ago

meanwhile the link is down..

jpincheira 7y ago

We use Netlify for https://standups.io https://standups.io and we still are not paying a penny for their service. It works for our different environments, creates deploy previews out of every branch, supports split testing, and we even use it as a CI for our ReactJS app using Cypress! It's so painless and reliable, we just love it.

skrebbel 7y ago
Can you explain more? I mean, I see that you're essentially a video service. Don't you have a backend? Don't people login? How do you handle all that on a static site host?
- jpincheira 7y ago
  Sure, happy to expand on it. You're right, as a video service, we cannot do everything through them, we use our own encoder service with AWS Lambda, and manage users through a NodeJS app. And Netlify is a very important part of our stack, as it holds our main client app, which connects to these other parts of our stack. Btw, congrats on TalkJS! Looks amazing.

elcomet 7y ago

My issue with netlify is the lack of data or analytics about traffic. I cannot even see the number of visits ! That's why I use GitHub + cloudflare.

navs 7y ago
Is that something that could be solved with Google Analytics, Mixpanel?
- elcomet 7y ago
  Google analytics gives very bad results, given the number of people using content blockers. I just want the number of unique visitors, I don't care about tracking or anything.

pembrook 7y ago

Anybody found a good CMS solution for static sites? I love everything about gatsby/Hugo/etc on Netlify but the lack of good CMS with out of the box SEO tools for writers to easily publish is a no go for my clients. Tried Netlify CMS and it unfortunately required way too much work to compete with the full featured Wordpress setup my editorial clients are used to.

navs 7y ago
https://forestry.io/ https://forestry.io/ (hugo) https://www.contentful.com/ https://www.contentful.com/ (used this with jekyll)
- codemati 7y ago
  +1 for Contentful with Gatsby. Painless setup.