20 ms·

Show HN: 1MB – Free and easy static website hosting and database

744 points by 1mbsite 7y ago

IgorPartola 7y ago
Looks sweet. I might actually use this. A few questions: 1. Why a custom JS-based CLI tool for deployment? What does it do? Why not something like plain SSH? 2. What is the plan for this? Presumably you'll want to monetize the project? Will you ever add ads to my sites? Or will you offer premium features? 3. What's the reason for the NoSQL DB? 4. Your CLI tool only allows .png files as images. Is there a reason you don't allow any other types? 5. Is there a limit on the number of sites you can have or the storage you can use?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  1. This tool allows you to deploy all files in your directory to your site. If you were using the API directly you’d need to deploy each file individually. 2. It was monetized in the past but Gumroad banned my account because they consider web hosts to be a risky business. I’m re-implementing Pro soon (more info: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site) 3. It just seemed like the most logical way to store and retrieve data with JavaScript. 4. It’s coded by a friend of mine but I’ll pass that feedback along! Thank you 5. Only 1 site per account. There is a 1 megabyte storage limit. I know it sounds crazy but most users don’t even come close. Pro users get 1 gigabyte.
  - so_tired 7y ago
    Can u tell about your experience getting banned? Were u allowed to withdraw your balance? What r u switching too?
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      They banned me without warning and refunded all my customers and I wasn’t impressed. After reaching out they refunded me all the money I lost though. I’m studying my choices
  - homero 7y ago
    Sftp would be incredible
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      For security reasons I can’t, but I wonder if somebody could make a SFTP wrapper that uses the 1MB API.
      - hopscotch 7y ago
        What security reasons? You can totally have a secure sftp endpoint on your filehost.
        1mbsite 7y ago
        I can’t reliably reject uploads if they are out of storage or enforce file types. Stuff like that
        hopscotch 7y ago
        You could do that with a wrapper around sftp, no?
- TheRealPomax 7y ago
  Dude, if I just want to put a page online, the last thing I want to have to deal with is SSH... Have browser, will content.
  - IgorPartola 7y ago
    SSH/SFTP is a standard protocol. Their API is not. Many more devices support sftp than their API. I don’t always have a browser, but I often have ssh.
    - voltagex_ 7y ago
      I'm more often somewhere that blocks port 22 than port 80, but I get you
    - marmaduke 7y ago
      but SSH/SFTP are a heavier burden for dev & ops than an HTTP API. WebDAV is a more suitable request in this case
  - homero 7y ago
    I saw an online editor
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  4. Has been resolved! https://www.npmjs.com/package/1mb-cli https://www.npmjs.com/package/1mb-cli
qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
Very refreshing to see a come back of simple, static websites.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you!
indigodaddy 7y ago
Any sort of git/GitHub integration features (or planned) ? Eg, I saw mention of code/theme editor, and working git into that would make some sense.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  How would that Git implementation look to you?
  - mrweasel 7y ago
    I think most would expect to just have a remote Git repo where you can push your site to. That would then do a checkout on the web server automatically.
    - dovyski 7y ago
      Precisely this! 1MB is perfect for a small "hosting" company putting other small companies online, e.g. John's bakery. A git deploy functionality would drastically improve automation to manage websites. I know the provided cli can do it, but it's a other thing to integrate.
  - revvx 7y ago
    In the GitHub integration, it could watch for changes in a repository (there's a webhook for that) and then 1mbsite would fetch the files and deploy them. Git integration is like Heroku. The user types `git push 1mbsite master` and 1mbsite would publish it.
lukevp 7y ago
Could you contrast this with Netlify? I believe they are in the same segment but I haven't used either.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  As far as I’m aware Netlify doesn’t offer a code editor in your browser. 1MB is geared towards simplicity but is able to be technical also.
  - itake 7y ago
    I haven't personally used it, so I don't know its limits, but Netlify offers an OSS CMS tool that you have to setup and configure yourself on your own static site. https://www.netlifycms.org/ https://www.netlifycms.org/
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      Boils down to the same answer as GitHub+Hugo argument. No installation required to use 1MB
- revvx 7y ago
  Netlify doesn't have a database
iamcreasy 7y ago
Looks nice. But what does it provide over Github/GitLab pages?
- asimpletune 7y ago
  I think it’s probably easier for some people.
- IshKebab 7y ago
  Or Firebase static hosting.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  If you don’t understand Git you can use 1MB. When you log in you get access to a code editor in your browser. It has lots of features to help get you online fast. 1MB is meant to be an easy to use tool, but it does offer advanced deployment options too via API and CLI. Also it has a NoSQL database unlike GitHub and GitLab Pages.
mprev 7y ago
Cool! But I can’t see anything on the site about who is behind this. Did I just miss it or is it missing? Especially when a service is free, I want to know a little about who I’m getting involved with. Edit: what’s the deal with the downvotes? It’s entirely reasonable to ask who is behind a service.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Hello my name is Dalton Edwards and I’ve been building this project for over half a year. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clearer (I do link to my personal site in the footer). I’ll write a bio about myself on the homepage.
  - mprev 7y ago
    Hello :) thanks. I’m excited by the project and I think transparency is important.
  - passthejoe 7y ago
    Good on ya, and good luck. Looks like a great project.
lobsterloga 7y ago
Hard to see what this offers beyond a simple GitHub+Hugo combo.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  For starters unlike Hugo you don’t have to install 1MB
andaci 7y ago
OVH also offers a 10MB free hosting with Let's Encrypt for every domain, probably more reliable
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Can you send me a link to that so I can send my counter points?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- mrweasel 7y ago
  Isn't that assuming that you buy your domain from OVH: https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Alright I found the link. OVH’s 10MB plan only has 1 GB of monthly bandwidth while 1MB’s is unmetered (fair use - don’t abuse). OVH’s 10MB plan doesn’t give you access to a database while 1MB gives you access to a secure NoSQL database. In closing they have more storage but they make up for that by taking away some core functionality that 1MB offers. https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Soft promises ("unlimited, don't abuse") make me nervous because they are not clear. Is making the front page of HN and doing 50gb in one day "abuse"?
    - acct1771 7y ago
      Probably not. But if you're hitting the frontpage twice a month, probably time to pay for a plan.
    - 7y ago
joshmn 7y ago
I don't know why everyone is being so negative in the comments so far. It's really discouraging to other people who want to share something they made. It makes me sad. OP: This is cool. It's not meant to replace Netlify or GH Pages or a million other things, and I understand that. Some people just want to make something and you made something. You've done more than so many people here by just releasing something and that's something to take great pride in. I don't have a use for it personally, but I think it's really cool and I took a look at the code to see what was going on. I found it neat. Ignore and excuse everyone that's expecting a multi-million dollar product from you. Everyone else: If you're genuinely asking "what's the point of this?" or "why's it free? who are you? why should I trust you?" or "what does this do that Netlify or GH Pages doesn't" — let's get real for a minute: Not everything is meant to compete with these services, or any service. There are a hundred-thousand products that exist on the internet with very happy users that you and I have never heard of. This bias that everything needs to be "the one" that we all use is discouraging, isn't the goal of this community, and isn't in the hacker spirit. It's fine to be skeptical and curious, but don't be a downer or shame. This is show and tell: Timmy brought a rock he thinks is cool, Cassie brought her mom's diamonds, and Shaun brought a 2Pac album. Don't yuck other people's yums.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you for your kind words! :)
  - joshmn 7y ago
    You're welcome. While I have you: What itch lead you to build this? What did you draw inspiration from?
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      I feel like there’s a lot of tools out there to simplify web development but none that do it how I wanted them to. I don’t want a drag-and-drop builder and I don’t want a command line only interface (although we offer one - the key is choices). I want to be able to easily code right inside my browser.
ignoramous 7y ago
Super nice. Despite presence of weebly, gumroad, shopify, squarespace, carrd et al, there is something missing that would put the rest of world on web, I feel; much like how WhatsApp has replaced most modes of personal communication in one fell swoop over the years, and how Twitter has taken over micro-blogging (key point: Both are free). To do that, I guess, 1mb or similar businesses could add capability to create a website, post to it, update it via something as ubiquitous as WhatsApp, kind of like a Tumblr or posterous clone; add ability to accept payments, sell things. Curiously, among my friends, telegram is used to consume content. They subscribe to telegram-channels and simply search for content posted and browse it right from the app. Much like how YouTube has replaced games, and Instagram has replaced Facebook, telegram in a sense has replaced Google/Browser. Perhaps, someone needs to invent a new kind of web that is in symbiosis with WhatsApp or these other very popular apps. I guess that is exactly what Meesho [0] is doing, but not quite? May be some business like 1mb will figure it all out. [0] https://blog.ycombinator.com/meesho/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/meesho/
- voltagex_ 7y ago
  WhatsApp is aggressively anti automation unless you're a big business. I'd definitely go for updates via email, though.
  - lucasverra 7y ago
    Whatsapp is opening it's biz API [0], hence founders are publicly speaking against it [1]. If you are big you get it first indeed. [0]: https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-acton-says-facebook-used-him-to-get-its-acquisition-past-eu-regulators/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-act...
jszymborski 7y ago
Things I love about this: I would have given my left ear to have a similar service growing up. There were a billion "free hosting" sites that let you throw PHP scripts up on them, and "free mysql" hosts that let you have a couple of free tables of X rows, which give a 12yo an incredible head start when it came to web-dev. The downside is that those sites were trying to push scuzzy gambling sites or were soft targets for hackers. This feels like a clean, modern reincarnation of that! No, this isn't posterous where your creations will live forever, this is a little playground for those who don't know how to or rather not configure a VPS for a little toy they've made. Great job! (EDIT: Shout-out to 2008's T35.com and CJB.net and their free php hosting and short sub-domains https://web.archive.org/web/20080617010556/http://www.t35.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080617010556/http://www.t35.co... , https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210303/http://www.cjb.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210303/http://www.cjb.ne...)
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you for your kind words! In closing I can assure you that your creations will live forever on 1MB as long as you don’t delete your account and follow everything outlined on https://policy.1mb.site https://policy.1mb.site. Also pride ourselves in being more secure than your average free website host
  - hopscotch 7y ago
    Have you had a proper security review? I don't think you would have made that mistake with user-websites being able to log out the user if you had designed with security as an important objective. Like, it's OK that you didn't, but maybe you should check that your entire public API (all microservices, UI, etc) will really be secure. You will probably struggle to get a secure interface while user content is served from the same domain as your UI.
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      For reference @hopscotch appears to be referring to this post: https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 I think the interaction in this forum thread says a lot about my focus on security. An issue was reported and I jumped on it immediately. I’m not going to sit here and claim to be perfect, but I am going to tell you that I work really hard to make sure I do stuff right and fix my mistakes ASAP. I have had white hat hackers review my API by the way and have patched reported security vulnerabilities.
stemuk 7y ago
The service itself is really cool and lines up nicely with the likes of Netlify and Github pages. I have two concerns though: 1) This doesn't seem to be connected to any major company, so how are you going to handle abuse of the service? With 'free hosting' offerings like this often comes a wave of abuse and malicious actors, so dealing with them is going to take significant resources. 2) How are you planning to monetize the service? Even though most sites hosted wont exceed a few kb, hosting fees will quickly add up, and unless you are using a cheap bare metal server you will likely face significant monthly bills. These concerns aside, the service looks really awesome for most personal blog use cases, so congratulations to a successful launch!
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  1. For the past half year I’ve been moderating the site myself and also have automated filters I’ve coded. I’m recruiting some volunteer moderators soon! 2. 1MB was monetized in the past but got banned by our payment processor because they consider web hosting to be a risky business. It’s honestly my own fault I should’ve read the terms. 1MB will be monetized again soon when I implement a new payment processor: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site
  - homero 7y ago
    I'd go with Chargebee and then merchant accounts can be hot swapped
  - nickpsecurity 7y ago
    Here's a list of payment processors that was on HN earlier today: https://startupstash.com/paypal-alternatives/ https://startupstash.com/paypal-alternatives/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19771573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19771573 Just dig into each that might fit your situation looking for people's props and gripes about them. Edited to add the HN link since commenters mentioned other services.
homero 7y ago
There's nothing like this even though it seems like there is. Great job.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! :)
chris_st 7y ago
Wow, this is fantastic -- can't count the number of "free hosting" sites that are disappointing because they don't have a database. Well done! I may try it out.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! I really hope you try it out :)
- basetop 7y ago
  What's the point of having a database for a static site though?
  - zimpenfish 7y ago
    1. To store the site content in 2. To store metadata that gets integrated into the generated site 3. To record stats/metadata about the site generation There's probably other scenarios people can think of.
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    Check out https://chat.1mb.site https://chat.1mb.site and https://forum.1mb.site https://forum.1mb.site which are 2 example apps using a 1MB database. Using nothing but JavaScript :)
naveen99 7y ago
If you can make a chat app, I am not sure you need to say static, it’s static + optionally dynamic. Looks good.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I refer to it as static hosting because even when using a 1MB database you’re querying it with JavaScript. Also databases are a new addition to 1MB so I’m at this weird crossroads where I don’t know if it’s static hosting anymore. Thank you!
  - triangleman 7y ago
    You might consider hitching your wagon to the term "JAMStack"... I have been playing with Hugo and the experience is great.
badsectoracula 7y ago
Why is it called 1MB? Is it a reference to the maximum storage you get? It'd be interesting for size optimized sites. Also are the sites supposed to look that big? https://i.imgur.com/QIRNATC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QIRNATC.jpg (sorry for shitty photo quality, my phone is ancient... i took a photo instead of a screenshot to show how big it looks physically)
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  It’s called 1MB because free members get 1 megabyte of storage. You build your site from scratch or use a template. That’s just how I chose to make my site look
  - badsectoracula 7y ago
    So i tried it out: https://badsector.1mb.site/ https://badsector.1mb.site/ (this is something i made a few years ago, i didn't make it now :-P) The UI looks a bit too big on my monitor, but other than that it is nice for small stuff. I think it needs some way to upload multiple files from the browser via upload dialog and/or dragdrop (like imgur does, for example). Also i found the editor autocompleting the closing tag very annoying! Also a bit annoying was the "smart" autoindentation (autoindent is fine of course, but trying to be smart clashes with how i'd indent things). Anyway, good luck with it :-).
t0astbread 7y ago
This looks super cool! And I love that this is run by an indie dev and not some VC-backed startup or big corporation. Definitely bookmarking this so that I can come back to it and see what I can build once I have time.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! :)
girst 7y ago
This looks really neat! Seems perfect for those set-and-forget, single purpose type websites. Maybe I'll move https://xkcd.wtf https://xkcd.wtf over to you! The only question is: how long will you be able to run this? There have been so many free webhosts that shut down over night, my confidence in any hosting project is limited
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I’ve been running 1MB for over half a year and it’s my passion project. I’m constantly improving and adding new features to it. 1MB makes money from Pro upgrades it’s just temporarily unavailable. I want to run this project for years to come. https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site
  - peter_d_sherman 7y ago
    Love it! Also, you said the magic words... What are the magic words? Are they "Abracadabra", "Alakazam" or "Open Sesame" perhaps? No. The magic words are: "Passion Project". In any marketplace, there are 800lb Gorillas, medium players, and "Passion Projects". I tend to root for the "Passion Project", having several of my own. I mean, this is America, right, many of us root for the underdog, right? Good luck with your "Passion Project"! May it grow and grow! (Also, realize that as it does, it will attract more and more criticism -> criticism = barometer of fame and indicator of success, that's criticism's secret identity, just so you know in advance! <g>)
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      Thank you! :)
  - girst 7y ago
    half a year isn't /that/ long. I do wish for you to succeed, so I'll keep my fingers crossed! ;-)
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
rocky1138 7y ago
I love this so much. I would be so happy if this kicked off another round of blogs and brought us back to the sharing economy.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! :) that would be awesome and anything is possible when it’s this easy to get online
nickodell 7y ago
Am I supposed to see something here? https://i.imgur.com/WNBbIep.png https://i.imgur.com/WNBbIep.png
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  “Securely access a NoSQL database using nothing but JavaScript With permissions, enforced fields, and the ability to get the logged in 1MB username you can easily create a dynamic application. Check out chat.1mb.site and forum.1mb.site which are both applications that utilize a 1MB database. Click here to read the API documentation.” looks like inspect element lol
revvx 7y ago
Love it, but one suggestion: I'd change the headline to "1MB – Free and easy static website hosting and database". That database is the edge you have compared to Netlify and Github pages people are asking for :) The authentication part is a nice touch, too. Feels more like a community thing. Checked out the API and you even have easy to setup database permissions. I like it. - Questions: do you plan to offer paid plans for people wishing to host more than 1MB, or having paid support? Maybe paid private login workspaces and SSO could be a paid feature too.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! :) Pro members get 1GB of storage and some other features: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site (coming soon)
  - revvx 7y ago
    Nice to hear! Sounds like you have a great product AND a plan :)
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      Pro launched! :)
      - DenseComet 7y ago
        You should really consider having Pro not being a onetime fee, but rather a monthly subscription, or at the very least both options. A single one time $100 fee is unlikely to go well with most users, but many more would be ok with contributing $5 or so a month if it meant supporting a good service.
        1mbsite 7y ago
        Pro is $5 a month or $100 for a lifetime plan. The monthly option isn’t available until I implement the new payment processor but please stay tuned I hear you :)
wybiral 7y ago
I haven't tried this yet but it reminds me of the spirit of GeoCities. For years now I've been hoping that one day the wheel of internet trends will roll back around and make personally-designed webpages a thing again instead of this bland "social media" landscape.
- krupan 7y ago
  Check out neocities.org
Lerc 7y ago
Is the 1MB name a reference to data limit? I couldn't see anything saying so but that's what sprang to mind. I like it. Some people have expressed concerns about yet another platform which holds your data. I don't actually have a problem with that as long as you can leave without being penalized. A good way to alleviate those concerns might be a feature where you could download all of your site data along with a guide to setting it up self hosted.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  You get 1MB of storage. Don’t be discouraged though most users don’t even come close to using it all. You can delete all your data from my server at any time.
CriticalCathed 7y ago
This is really fucking cool.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! :) it’s a project built with lots of love
markussss 7y ago
This looks really cool! It seems like it's just what I've been looking for lately, without realizing it. Will look more into this when I get back from vacation. Thanks for sharing and showing.
aurora72 7y ago
Looks succinct and minimalistly practical. Is it totally open-source in the sense that I can replicate the 1mb.site on my own server using 3-4 the repos published on Github?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! You can’t self-host 1MB, but we do offer some open source software on our repo at https://GitHub.com/1MB https://GitHub.com/1MB
  - aurora72 7y ago
    Sorry I have no time for closed-source things.
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      Fair enough! I just can’t make all my hard work open source.. I’m trying to build a business. There’s a time and a place for open source, and I’d only be helping my competitors as an indie developer.
      - krapp 7y ago
        >There’s a time and a place for open source, and I’d only be helping my competitors as an indie developer. With all due respect, your "business" is static web hosting, which is not exactly a revolutionary or paradigm shifting concept. There's likely little to no competitive advantage in any of the code you've written, or disadvantage to open sourcing it (although it's understandable if you don't want to open source it, then be left on the hook to maintain it.) It's fine if you want to try to make money with a passion project, but as far as the market is concerned, you already lost the race to social media and the cloud before you even started. You're not actually competing with anyone in any meaningful sense, any more than Hacker News is competing with Reddit.
        1mbsite 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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Procrastes 7y ago
This is very cool! I'm currently using Netlify to host tiny sites for non profits and local candidates. I love Netlify, but this would be an interesting alternative. Being able to edit in the browser could also be a big deal to allow some of them to edit their own pages. Netlify has forms but they are pretty limited (100 submissions per month on the free plan). I'll definitely give you a try when the next one comes around. Being able to store a little data is another really big plus.
pcdoodle 7y ago
Great job!
1mbsite 7y ago
If you want to upgrade your account check out: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site - For a one-time $100 payment you’ll get access to 1MB Pro forever and help support an indie project. Monthly cost will be $5 a month when I implement my new payment processor. Until then only lifetime purchases are possible.
- jordache 7y ago
  lifetime for as long as the developer decides to maintain the service?
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    The combination of revenue between lifetime and monthly subscriptions actually far outweigh hosting costs after I hit an easily obtainable customer number. Granted I’ll need to scale my server in time this is actually a sustainable business / I understand being skeptical of “forever”. If you were paying $5 a month it would be $60 a year, in under 2 years you’re already making your money back
    - stanmancan 7y ago
      It’s rarely about the cost and more about the level of effort to maintain said service. Without a plan in place it’s hard to accept “it Shouldn’t lose money” as valid proof that you won’t grow bored of this in 1...2...5...10 years. Also, more lucrative things may come up and take up your time, making running this current service unappealing or impossible.
      - 1mbsite 7y ago
        My point is $100 is about a year and a half of monthly 1MB Pro payments, so you only need to bank on 1MB lasting a year and a half at least not “forever” to get your money’s worth (and you’re supporting an indie project). Anyways I’ve added a disclaimer: “Forever or for the life of the project. 1MB isn't going anywhere, but we also can't predict the future. No refunds!“
tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
Looks great! Please make a plan how to deal with abuse; in the past, most services that provided low-friction hosting stopped being low friction (e.g. they started requiring login with a facebook account), presumably to cut down on abuse (like phishers creating lots of accounts to host phishing sites).
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  In the past I ended abuse by adding that recaptcha to registration form. I’m recruiting volunteer moderators as we speak :)
  - nkozyra 7y ago
    That may stop automated abuse but ultimately that's less of a concern.
- minhajuddin 7y ago
  This is going to be a real problem and it is hard for small sites to tackle this. I have simple service (https://liveformhq.com https://liveformhq.com) which allowed users to sign up for an account with a free 1 month trial and it didn't ask for your credit card upfront. Everything was fine until a few months ago when people started signing up and setting up phishing forms (I had the registration form behind recaptcha). At the end I had to move the credit card form to the front to stop these bad actors (and even after this I had 1 guy set up a phishing form which I promptly shut off after an abuse report). The amount of effort spent to handle bad actors is really a terrible thing for the current SaaS apps. And, it ends up making the UX for the good users bad :(
rammy1234 7y ago
I want to upgrade and support this project. But I am not sure if this is a scam :) should I wait before doing this ? Any thoughts ?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  This project is ran by a guy named Dalton (me), not by some big company with lots of funding. When you upgrade to Pro you’re helping offset hosting costs and validating the countless hours I spend developing this project. 1MB has been featured on Product Hunt twice: https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite & https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite-v2 https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite-v2, has over 300 followers on Twitter https://twitter.com/1mbsite https://twitter.com/1mbsite, and is hosting over 1,100 sites at the time of writing. What’s my point? 1MB is trusted by many :)
markdown 7y ago
This forum thread scares me: https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 GET requests never affecting state is backend web dev 101.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
HNKingpin 7y ago
What can you really do with 1 megabyte? Clearly nothing serious. Why suggest it's free then? Neocities provides 1GB which is actually a relevant amount.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  1mb is like 200,000 words. That's a lot of content
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  You’re entitled to your opinion. Please check out the featured sites on homepage. All of them with the exception of some Pro sites (which get 1GB) were made with only 1MB of storage. Most users don’t even come close to reaching 1 megabyte. Not to mention you can link to external stylesheets and scripts...
- kyledrake 7y ago
  > What can you really do with 1 megabyte? A ton. It's more than enough. What can one do with 140 character limits?
- opan 7y ago
  My Neocities site is still under 1KB I think. If you're writing HTML/CSS by hand it has no reason to get really big.
nvusuvu 7y ago
Could this be used to create a niche CRM? I've got someone asking me to develop a CRM for them in their business domain.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but if you can build it with JavaScript and a NoSQL database than yes :)
tomglynch 7y ago
Love the simplicity and custom domains. I often use glitch [1] but will give 1MB a go as custom domains is difficult with Glitch. Side note, your footer on mobile is missing some items unless you release you can swipe across - which is not obvious. [1] https://glitch.com https://glitch.com
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  It’s a horizontal scrolling menu by design let me think of how to make it more obvious, as I see what you mean
sachkris 7y ago
Awesome service! Thanks for making it available. A small comment: In the 'Edit Site' page, the preview is reloading with every keystroke. Would it be better to make it refresh on the click of a button?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I wanted it to be live feedback, but it is kind of distracting. I’ll add that to my development roadmap! Thanks for using my service :)
sandGorgon 7y ago
Three suggestions: 1. please dont have "forever" pricing. i would rather pay a higher fee monthly. 2. please have tiers according to size and bandwidth requirements 3. Instead of creating your own cli, etc. Could you integrate with Gatsbyjs ? In fact, your killer feature could be a wysiwyg editor for Gatsby I would strongly prefer an open standard like Graphql over a custom nosql you have. You can implement it at your end using something like https://hasura.io/ https://hasura.io/ or something. this is killer if it happens. You are basically netlify+gatsbyjs+contentful rolled into one. I could never figure out why netlify and contentful dont support the features of the other.
- unicornporn 7y ago
  > please dont have "forever" pricing. i would rather pay a higher fee monthly. Well, I would disagree. Forever pricing would be awesome.
  - A2017U1 7y ago
    I've gotten forever accounts with shodan and a very popular vpn service, I was half expecting the service quality to at least diminish after a year or two around the positive return mark but didn't happen. They've outperformed my expectations dramatically.
Zhenya 7y ago
This is great and incredibly useful. Quick note: Google sites requires 2 nameservers and because of that I am not able to point the site to my domain.
ficklepickle 7y ago
I have been looking for something like this! My use case is a minimal CMS back-end and admin interface. Basically adding some dynamic content to a otherwise static site that the user(s) can change themselves. The 1mb site would be an admin interface for changing the content in the DB, the 1mb DB serving the content to the front-end hosted elsewhere. I'll have to try this out. Very cool.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! :) I hope you like 1MB
piyush_soni 7y ago
Nice work! A small question: even though I'm a real person always logged in on Google, the recaptcha you've used makes me click few photos for free ... Is it a setting you control when you put that plugin in your website, or Google does everything itself?
- dsl 7y ago
  No, site owners do not control what challenge you receive from Recaptcha.
  - piyush_soni 7y ago
    Yeah, my question was more about 'how many' than 'what'. There is no question Google doesn't think I'm not a real person, it still shows me two to three pages of image clicking making me its worker robot for free.
bikamonki 7y ago
What if one of your users gets lucky and traffic goes huge for one site? Everybody else gets 503's? Have you planned/designed for such scenario?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I have a fair use bandwidth policy. You can’t abuse it.
  - bikamonki 7y ago
    You mean: if passed certain traffic threshold a particular site gets automatically blocked, or, you hope your users will be fair? Let's say that given your service is free and with custom domain, a journalist uses it to publish 100k worth of revealing docs in whistlerblower.com. Then a government acts and directs a DDOs to it. What will happen to that site? To other sites?
_fizz_buzz_ 7y ago
Dang, this is awesome. I love everything about this.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! Hope you find 1MB useful :)
evanwaltersdev 7y ago
I love this service, and I have used it from the start. Whenever I see these free services offering freedom and creativity I see easy opportunity for abuse. I hate visiting a free service to see a note left behind from the developer - "sorry, we were flooded with spam and I had to wipe the database/shutdown the service". What plans do you have in place to prevent this from happening. All I can think of when I see free web hosting is "how long will this one last". Explain to me why I should place my trust in this not shutting down in the next couple of years :)
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I have automated filters coded to help with spam and other abuse. I’m also recruiting volunteer moderators as we speak. Another reason you can trust that 1MB won’t shut down anytime soon is that it’s a profitable business and I’m passionate about building it.
Monica_Thompson 7y ago
Nothing better than free. This platform looks very user friendly and great for an average user. Can't wait to try it
tobyhinloopen 7y ago
https://an.1mb.site https://an.1mb.site "I'm An ..." You're a what?
- wccrawford 7y ago
  An. It's a name. Though I'll admit I was confused as well until I saw the twitter handle.
ollran 7y ago
Have you considered using OpenID authentication?
ilaksh 7y ago
Congratulations on your HN success. Having that built in DB is a killer feature to me. Does the DB prevent hackers from overwriting keys?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  1MB databases with public write permissions don’t let you overwrite keys :)
logandk 7y ago
Awesome work, I will introduce this to my kid. With the built-in database/kv-store and excellent UX, I can't think of a better platform to get started with web development.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  How does your kid like 1MB?
  - logandk 7y ago
    He's mostly concerned with the learning curve of HTML and CSS, so I'd say that it's a success so far - no tooling got in the way of his learning. We haven't gotten to using the database yet...
faton 7y ago
How does it work in terms of security? If I make my sites' database writeable by authenticated users, doesn't in mean that any authenticated client can send a request to delete all records?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  The db-delete endpoint always requires your API key no matter if read or write permissions are enabled.
Herbert_Taylor 7y ago
Am not a fan of this sort of thing but after have been scammed 4 times i finally met an hacking god that can change and improve your school grades, get you a citizenship permit, wire funds into your account or any account, hack email or social media, hack your bf or gfs iphone, fix and upgrade your credit score,clear criminal records, clear dmv records.Just name it,he is the true hacking god. Contact RICHARDSTALLMANCREDITREPAIR@GMAIL.COM. Very affordable,effective, efficient, calm,optimistic and reliable.
wazoox 7y ago
It displays as garbage on my system (Linux, Firefox 66.0.3): https://screenshots.firefox.com/loCbaBtgGVqoUYeh/1mb.site https://screenshots.firefox.com/loCbaBtgGVqoUYeh/1mb.site somewhat better with Chromium but weird nonetheless: http://i.imgur.com/1IbVXEQ.png http://i.imgur.com/1IbVXEQ.png
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I’m at a loss for words does anybody else want to weigh in?
otterpro 7y ago
I had a similar idea, with storage limit of a classic 1.44MB floppy disk. Imagine an entire website which fits in a floppy disk.
zoom6628 7y ago
Looks great. Now on my to-do list to build something using it. Well done and wish you every success with this as a business.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you! I really hope you find 1MB useful :)
craftinator 7y ago
I tried to deploy a Hugo static site to 1mb, and while it rendered fine on localhost, it would display text only on 1mb. Is this feasible, and what could I be doing wrong?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  1MB doesn’t support directories at the time of writing.. did your Hugo site make use of directories? Or another thing I can think of is if you’re trying to make a single page site make a 200.html file (it’ll replace index.html and all requests to nonexistent files will go to 200.html)
  - craftinator 7y ago
    Thank you for getting back to me! It is definitely caused by directories; I didn't see anything about that in the 1mb documentation (or skimmed and missed it), so I figured I just had settings wrong. Thank you!
indigodaddy 7y ago
Very cool default site page...! (Eg your page not found page or putting IP in browser)
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Thank you :)
1mbsite 7y ago
Pro members can host up to 5 websites per account now :) https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site
deadbeef404 7y ago
I tried using this today. I couldn't find a way to rename the site I signed up for; I didn't make the connection that the username would be the URL/site name. I also couldn't delete my primary site to create a replacement, so I had to close my account just to create a site with a new name. Just thought I'd let y'all know a minor inconvenience I ran into.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  I’ll make it more obvious on registration that the name can’t be changed :) I’m sorry about that. I’d add a username change option but it would actually require a lot of updates to the backend
fullstackjob 7y ago
Great service. Use it since it's online for my little Job Board Listing: https://altafino.1mb.site/ https://altafino.1mb.site/ Up in seconds, easy if you know basics of html.

744 points by 1mbsite 7y ago

Looks sweet. I might actually use this. A few questions: 1. Why a custom JS-based CLI tool for deployment? What does it do? Why not something like plain SSH? 2. What is the plan for this? Presumably you'll want to monetize the project? Will you ever add ads to my sites? Or will you offer premium features? 3. What's the reason for the NoSQL DB? 4. Your CLI tool only allows .png files as images. Is there a reason you don't allow any other types? 5. Is there a limit on the number of sites you can have or the storage you can use?

1mbsite 7y ago
1. This tool allows you to deploy all files in your directory to your site. If you were using the API directly you’d need to deploy each file individually. 2. It was monetized in the past but Gumroad banned my account because they consider web hosts to be a risky business. I’m re-implementing Pro soon (more info: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site) 3. It just seemed like the most logical way to store and retrieve data with JavaScript. 4. It’s coded by a friend of mine but I’ll pass that feedback along! Thank you 5. Only 1 site per account. There is a 1 megabyte storage limit. I know it sounds crazy but most users don’t even come close. Pro users get 1 gigabyte.
- so_tired 7y ago
  Can u tell about your experience getting banned? Were u allowed to withdraw your balance? What r u switching too?
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    They banned me without warning and refunded all my customers and I wasn’t impressed. After reaching out they refunded me all the money I lost though. I’m studying my choices
- homero 7y ago
  Sftp would be incredible
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    For security reasons I can’t, but I wonder if somebody could make a SFTP wrapper that uses the 1MB API.
    - hopscotch 7y ago
      What security reasons? You can totally have a secure sftp endpoint on your filehost.
      - 1mbsite 7y ago
        I can’t reliably reject uploads if they are out of storage or enforce file types. Stuff like that
        hopscotch 7y ago
        You could do that with a wrapper around sftp, no?
TheRealPomax 7y ago
Dude, if I just want to put a page online, the last thing I want to have to deal with is SSH... Have browser, will content.
- IgorPartola 7y ago
  SSH/SFTP is a standard protocol. Their API is not. Many more devices support sftp than their API. I don’t always have a browser, but I often have ssh.
  - voltagex_ 7y ago
    I'm more often somewhere that blocks port 22 than port 80, but I get you
  - marmaduke 7y ago
    but SSH/SFTP are a heavier burden for dev & ops than an HTTP API. WebDAV is a more suitable request in this case
- homero 7y ago
  I saw an online editor
1mbsite 7y ago
4. Has been resolved! https://www.npmjs.com/package/1mb-cli https://www.npmjs.com/package/1mb-cli

qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago

Very refreshing to see a come back of simple, static websites.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you!

indigodaddy 7y ago

Any sort of git/GitHub integration features (or planned) ? Eg, I saw mention of code/theme editor, and working git into that would make some sense.

1mbsite 7y ago
How would that Git implementation look to you?
- mrweasel 7y ago
  I think most would expect to just have a remote Git repo where you can push your site to. That would then do a checkout on the web server automatically.
  - dovyski 7y ago
    Precisely this! 1MB is perfect for a small "hosting" company putting other small companies online, e.g. John's bakery. A git deploy functionality would drastically improve automation to manage websites. I know the provided cli can do it, but it's a other thing to integrate.
- revvx 7y ago
  In the GitHub integration, it could watch for changes in a repository (there's a webhook for that) and then 1mbsite would fetch the files and deploy them. Git integration is like Heroku. The user types `git push 1mbsite master` and 1mbsite would publish it.

lukevp 7y ago

Could you contrast this with Netlify? I believe they are in the same segment but I haven't used either.

1mbsite 7y ago
As far as I’m aware Netlify doesn’t offer a code editor in your browser. 1MB is geared towards simplicity but is able to be technical also.
- itake 7y ago
  I haven't personally used it, so I don't know its limits, but Netlify offers an OSS CMS tool that you have to setup and configure yourself on your own static site. https://www.netlifycms.org/ https://www.netlifycms.org/
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    Boils down to the same answer as GitHub+Hugo argument. No installation required to use 1MB
revvx 7y ago
Netlify doesn't have a database

iamcreasy 7y ago

Looks nice. But what does it provide over Github/GitLab pages?

asimpletune 7y ago
I think it’s probably easier for some people.
IshKebab 7y ago
Or Firebase static hosting.
1mbsite 7y ago
If you don’t understand Git you can use 1MB. When you log in you get access to a code editor in your browser. It has lots of features to help get you online fast. 1MB is meant to be an easy to use tool, but it does offer advanced deployment options too via API and CLI. Also it has a NoSQL database unlike GitHub and GitLab Pages.

mprev 7y ago

Cool! But I can’t see anything on the site about who is behind this. Did I just miss it or is it missing? Especially when a service is free, I want to know a little about who I’m getting involved with. Edit: what’s the deal with the downvotes? It’s entirely reasonable to ask who is behind a service.

1mbsite 7y ago
Hello my name is Dalton Edwards and I’ve been building this project for over half a year. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clearer (I do link to my personal site in the footer). I’ll write a bio about myself on the homepage.
- mprev 7y ago
  Hello :) thanks. I’m excited by the project and I think transparency is important.
- passthejoe 7y ago
  Good on ya, and good luck. Looks like a great project.

lobsterloga 7y ago

Hard to see what this offers beyond a simple GitHub+Hugo combo.

1mbsite 7y ago
For starters unlike Hugo you don’t have to install 1MB

andaci 7y ago

OVH also offers a 10MB free hosting with Let's Encrypt for every domain, probably more reliable

1mbsite 7y ago
Can you send me a link to that so I can send my counter points?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mrweasel 7y ago
Isn't that assuming that you buy your domain from OVH: https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml
1mbsite 7y ago
Alright I found the link. OVH’s 10MB plan only has 1 GB of monthly bandwidth while 1MB’s is unmetered (fair use - don’t abuse). OVH’s 10MB plan doesn’t give you access to a database while 1MB gives you access to a secure NoSQL database. In closing they have more storage but they make up for that by taking away some core functionality that 1MB offers. https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml
- TylerE 7y ago
  Soft promises ("unlimited, don't abuse") make me nervous because they are not clear. Is making the front page of HN and doing 50gb in one day "abuse"?
  - acct1771 7y ago
    Probably not. But if you're hitting the frontpage twice a month, probably time to pay for a plan.
  - 7y ago

joshmn 7y ago

I don't know why everyone is being so negative in the comments so far. It's really discouraging to other people who want to share something they made. It makes me sad. OP: This is cool. It's not meant to replace Netlify or GH Pages or a million other things, and I understand that. Some people just want to make something and you made something. You've done more than so many people here by just releasing something and that's something to take great pride in. I don't have a use for it personally, but I think it's really cool and I took a look at the code to see what was going on. I found it neat. Ignore and excuse everyone that's expecting a multi-million dollar product from you. Everyone else: If you're genuinely asking "what's the point of this?" or "why's it free? who are you? why should I trust you?" or "what does this do that Netlify or GH Pages doesn't" — let's get real for a minute: Not everything is meant to compete with these services, or any service. There are a hundred-thousand products that exist on the internet with very happy users that you and I have never heard of. This bias that everything needs to be "the one" that we all use is discouraging, isn't the goal of this community, and isn't in the hacker spirit. It's fine to be skeptical and curious, but don't be a downer or shame. This is show and tell: Timmy brought a rock he thinks is cool, Cassie brought her mom's diamonds, and Shaun brought a 2Pac album. Don't yuck other people's yums.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you for your kind words! :)
- joshmn 7y ago
  You're welcome. While I have you: What itch lead you to build this? What did you draw inspiration from?
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    I feel like there’s a lot of tools out there to simplify web development but none that do it how I wanted them to. I don’t want a drag-and-drop builder and I don’t want a command line only interface (although we offer one - the key is choices). I want to be able to easily code right inside my browser.

ignoramous 7y ago

Super nice. Despite presence of weebly, gumroad, shopify, squarespace, carrd et al, there is something missing that would put the rest of world on web, I feel; much like how WhatsApp has replaced most modes of personal communication in one fell swoop over the years, and how Twitter has taken over micro-blogging (key point: Both are free). To do that, I guess, 1mb or similar businesses could add capability to create a website, post to it, update it via something as ubiquitous as WhatsApp, kind of like a Tumblr or posterous clone; add ability to accept payments, sell things. Curiously, among my friends, telegram is used to consume content. They subscribe to telegram-channels and simply search for content posted and browse it right from the app. Much like how YouTube has replaced games, and Instagram has replaced Facebook, telegram in a sense has replaced Google/Browser. Perhaps, someone needs to invent a new kind of web that is in symbiosis with WhatsApp or these other very popular apps. I guess that is exactly what Meesho [0] is doing, but not quite? May be some business like 1mb will figure it all out. [0] https://blog.ycombinator.com/meesho/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/meesho/

voltagex_ 7y ago
WhatsApp is aggressively anti automation unless you're a big business. I'd definitely go for updates via email, though.
- lucasverra 7y ago
  Whatsapp is opening it's biz API [0], hence founders are publicly speaking against it [1]. If you are big you get it first indeed. [0]: https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-acton-says-facebook-used-him-to-get-its-acquisition-past-eu-regulators/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-act...

jszymborski 7y ago

Things I love about this: I would have given my left ear to have a similar service growing up. There were a billion "free hosting" sites that let you throw PHP scripts up on them, and "free mysql" hosts that let you have a couple of free tables of X rows, which give a 12yo an incredible head start when it came to web-dev. The downside is that those sites were trying to push scuzzy gambling sites or were soft targets for hackers. This feels like a clean, modern reincarnation of that! No, this isn't posterous where your creations will live forever, this is a little playground for those who don't know how to or rather not configure a VPS for a little toy they've made. Great job! (EDIT: Shout-out to 2008's T35.com and CJB.net and their free php hosting and short sub-domains https://web.archive.org/web/20080617010556/http://www.t35.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080617010556/http://www.t35.co... , https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210303/http://www.cjb.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210303/http://www.cjb.ne...)

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you for your kind words! In closing I can assure you that your creations will live forever on 1MB as long as you don’t delete your account and follow everything outlined on https://policy.1mb.site https://policy.1mb.site. Also pride ourselves in being more secure than your average free website host
- hopscotch 7y ago
  Have you had a proper security review? I don't think you would have made that mistake with user-websites being able to log out the user if you had designed with security as an important objective. Like, it's OK that you didn't, but maybe you should check that your entire public API (all microservices, UI, etc) will really be secure. You will probably struggle to get a secure interface while user content is served from the same domain as your UI.
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    For reference @hopscotch appears to be referring to this post: https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 I think the interaction in this forum thread says a lot about my focus on security. An issue was reported and I jumped on it immediately. I’m not going to sit here and claim to be perfect, but I am going to tell you that I work really hard to make sure I do stuff right and fix my mistakes ASAP. I have had white hat hackers review my API by the way and have patched reported security vulnerabilities.

stemuk 7y ago

The service itself is really cool and lines up nicely with the likes of Netlify and Github pages. I have two concerns though: 1) This doesn't seem to be connected to any major company, so how are you going to handle abuse of the service? With 'free hosting' offerings like this often comes a wave of abuse and malicious actors, so dealing with them is going to take significant resources. 2) How are you planning to monetize the service? Even though most sites hosted wont exceed a few kb, hosting fees will quickly add up, and unless you are using a cheap bare metal server you will likely face significant monthly bills. These concerns aside, the service looks really awesome for most personal blog use cases, so congratulations to a successful launch!

1mbsite 7y ago
1. For the past half year I’ve been moderating the site myself and also have automated filters I’ve coded. I’m recruiting some volunteer moderators soon! 2. 1MB was monetized in the past but got banned by our payment processor because they consider web hosting to be a risky business. It’s honestly my own fault I should’ve read the terms. 1MB will be monetized again soon when I implement a new payment processor: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site
- homero 7y ago
  I'd go with Chargebee and then merchant accounts can be hot swapped
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  Here's a list of payment processors that was on HN earlier today: https://startupstash.com/paypal-alternatives/ https://startupstash.com/paypal-alternatives/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19771573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19771573 Just dig into each that might fit your situation looking for people's props and gripes about them. Edited to add the HN link since commenters mentioned other services.

homero 7y ago

There's nothing like this even though it seems like there is. Great job.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! :)

chris_st 7y ago

Wow, this is fantastic -- can't count the number of "free hosting" sites that are disappointing because they don't have a database. Well done! I may try it out.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! I really hope you try it out :)
basetop 7y ago
What's the point of having a database for a static site though?
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  1. To store the site content in 2. To store metadata that gets integrated into the generated site 3. To record stats/metadata about the site generation There's probably other scenarios people can think of.
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  Check out https://chat.1mb.site https://chat.1mb.site and https://forum.1mb.site https://forum.1mb.site which are 2 example apps using a 1MB database. Using nothing but JavaScript :)

naveen99 7y ago

If you can make a chat app, I am not sure you need to say static, it’s static + optionally dynamic. Looks good.

1mbsite 7y ago
I refer to it as static hosting because even when using a 1MB database you’re querying it with JavaScript. Also databases are a new addition to 1MB so I’m at this weird crossroads where I don’t know if it’s static hosting anymore. Thank you!
- triangleman 7y ago
  You might consider hitching your wagon to the term "JAMStack"... I have been playing with Hugo and the experience is great.

badsectoracula 7y ago

Why is it called 1MB? Is it a reference to the maximum storage you get? It'd be interesting for size optimized sites. Also are the sites supposed to look that big? https://i.imgur.com/QIRNATC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QIRNATC.jpg (sorry for shitty photo quality, my phone is ancient... i took a photo instead of a screenshot to show how big it looks physically)

1mbsite 7y ago
It’s called 1MB because free members get 1 megabyte of storage. You build your site from scratch or use a template. That’s just how I chose to make my site look
- badsectoracula 7y ago
  So i tried it out: https://badsector.1mb.site/ https://badsector.1mb.site/ (this is something i made a few years ago, i didn't make it now :-P) The UI looks a bit too big on my monitor, but other than that it is nice for small stuff. I think it needs some way to upload multiple files from the browser via upload dialog and/or dragdrop (like imgur does, for example). Also i found the editor autocompleting the closing tag very annoying! Also a bit annoying was the "smart" autoindentation (autoindent is fine of course, but trying to be smart clashes with how i'd indent things). Anyway, good luck with it :-).

t0astbread 7y ago

This looks super cool! And I love that this is run by an indie dev and not some VC-backed startup or big corporation. Definitely bookmarking this so that I can come back to it and see what I can build once I have time.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! :)

girst 7y ago

This looks really neat! Seems perfect for those set-and-forget, single purpose type websites. Maybe I'll move https://xkcd.wtf https://xkcd.wtf over to you! The only question is: how long will you be able to run this? There have been so many free webhosts that shut down over night, my confidence in any hosting project is limited

1mbsite 7y ago
I’ve been running 1MB for over half a year and it’s my passion project. I’m constantly improving and adding new features to it. 1MB makes money from Pro upgrades it’s just temporarily unavailable. I want to run this project for years to come. https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site
- peter_d_sherman 7y ago
  Love it! Also, you said the magic words... What are the magic words? Are they "Abracadabra", "Alakazam" or "Open Sesame" perhaps? No. The magic words are: "Passion Project". In any marketplace, there are 800lb Gorillas, medium players, and "Passion Projects". I tend to root for the "Passion Project", having several of my own. I mean, this is America, right, many of us root for the underdog, right? Good luck with your "Passion Project"! May it grow and grow! (Also, realize that as it does, it will attract more and more criticism -> criticism = barometer of fame and indicator of success, that's criticism's secret identity, just so you know in advance! <g>)
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    Thank you! :)
- girst 7y ago
  half a year isn't /that/ long. I do wish for you to succeed, so I'll keep my fingers crossed! ;-)
  - 1mbsite 7y ago

rocky1138 7y ago

I love this so much. I would be so happy if this kicked off another round of blogs and brought us back to the sharing economy.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! :) that would be awesome and anything is possible when it’s this easy to get online

nickodell 7y ago

Am I supposed to see something here? https://i.imgur.com/WNBbIep.png https://i.imgur.com/WNBbIep.png

1mbsite 7y ago
“Securely access a NoSQL database using nothing but JavaScript With permissions, enforced fields, and the ability to get the logged in 1MB username you can easily create a dynamic application. Check out chat.1mb.site and forum.1mb.site which are both applications that utilize a 1MB database. Click here to read the API documentation.” looks like inspect element lol

revvx 7y ago

Love it, but one suggestion: I'd change the headline to "1MB – Free and easy static website hosting and database". That database is the edge you have compared to Netlify and Github pages people are asking for :) The authentication part is a nice touch, too. Feels more like a community thing. Checked out the API and you even have easy to setup database permissions. I like it. - Questions: do you plan to offer paid plans for people wishing to host more than 1MB, or having paid support? Maybe paid private login workspaces and SSO could be a paid feature too.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! :) Pro members get 1GB of storage and some other features: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site (coming soon)
- revvx 7y ago
  Nice to hear! Sounds like you have a great product AND a plan :)
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    Pro launched! :)
    - DenseComet 7y ago
      You should really consider having Pro not being a onetime fee, but rather a monthly subscription, or at the very least both options. A single one time $100 fee is unlikely to go well with most users, but many more would be ok with contributing $5 or so a month if it meant supporting a good service.
      - 1mbsite 7y ago
        Pro is $5 a month or $100 for a lifetime plan. The monthly option isn’t available until I implement the new payment processor but please stay tuned I hear you :)

wybiral 7y ago

I haven't tried this yet but it reminds me of the spirit of GeoCities. For years now I've been hoping that one day the wheel of internet trends will roll back around and make personally-designed webpages a thing again instead of this bland "social media" landscape.

krupan 7y ago
Check out neocities.org

Lerc 7y ago

Is the 1MB name a reference to data limit? I couldn't see anything saying so but that's what sprang to mind. I like it. Some people have expressed concerns about yet another platform which holds your data. I don't actually have a problem with that as long as you can leave without being penalized. A good way to alleviate those concerns might be a feature where you could download all of your site data along with a guide to setting it up self hosted.

1mbsite 7y ago
You get 1MB of storage. Don’t be discouraged though most users don’t even come close to using it all. You can delete all your data from my server at any time.

CriticalCathed 7y ago

This is really fucking cool.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! :) it’s a project built with lots of love

markussss 7y ago

This looks really cool! It seems like it's just what I've been looking for lately, without realizing it. Will look more into this when I get back from vacation. Thanks for sharing and showing.

aurora72 7y ago

Looks succinct and minimalistly practical. Is it totally open-source in the sense that I can replicate the 1mb.site on my own server using 3-4 the repos published on Github?

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! You can’t self-host 1MB, but we do offer some open source software on our repo at https://GitHub.com/1MB https://GitHub.com/1MB
- aurora72 7y ago
  Sorry I have no time for closed-source things.
  - 1mbsite 7y ago
    Fair enough! I just can’t make all my hard work open source.. I’m trying to build a business. There’s a time and a place for open source, and I’d only be helping my competitors as an indie developer.
    - krapp 7y ago
      >There’s a time and a place for open source, and I’d only be helping my competitors as an indie developer. With all due respect, your "business" is static web hosting, which is not exactly a revolutionary or paradigm shifting concept. There's likely little to no competitive advantage in any of the code you've written, or disadvantage to open sourcing it (although it's understandable if you don't want to open source it, then be left on the hook to maintain it.) It's fine if you want to try to make money with a passion project, but as far as the market is concerned, you already lost the race to social media and the cloud before you even started. You're not actually competing with anyone in any meaningful sense, any more than Hacker News is competing with Reddit.
      - 1mbsite 7y ago

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Procrastes 7y ago

This is very cool! I'm currently using Netlify to host tiny sites for non profits and local candidates. I love Netlify, but this would be an interesting alternative. Being able to edit in the browser could also be a big deal to allow some of them to edit their own pages. Netlify has forms but they are pretty limited (100 submissions per month on the free plan). I'll definitely give you a try when the next one comes around. Being able to store a little data is another really big plus.

pcdoodle 7y ago

Great job!

1mbsite 7y ago

If you want to upgrade your account check out: https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site - For a one-time $100 payment you’ll get access to 1MB Pro forever and help support an indie project. Monthly cost will be $5 a month when I implement my new payment processor. Until then only lifetime purchases are possible.

jordache 7y ago
lifetime for as long as the developer decides to maintain the service?
- 1mbsite 7y ago
  The combination of revenue between lifetime and monthly subscriptions actually far outweigh hosting costs after I hit an easily obtainable customer number. Granted I’ll need to scale my server in time this is actually a sustainable business / I understand being skeptical of “forever”. If you were paying $5 a month it would be $60 a year, in under 2 years you’re already making your money back
  - stanmancan 7y ago
    It’s rarely about the cost and more about the level of effort to maintain said service. Without a plan in place it’s hard to accept “it Shouldn’t lose money” as valid proof that you won’t grow bored of this in 1...2...5...10 years. Also, more lucrative things may come up and take up your time, making running this current service unappealing or impossible.
    - 1mbsite 7y ago
      My point is $100 is about a year and a half of monthly 1MB Pro payments, so you only need to bank on 1MB lasting a year and a half at least not “forever” to get your money’s worth (and you’re supporting an indie project). Anyways I’ve added a disclaimer: “Forever or for the life of the project. 1MB isn't going anywhere, but we also can't predict the future. No refunds!“

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago

Looks great! Please make a plan how to deal with abuse; in the past, most services that provided low-friction hosting stopped being low friction (e.g. they started requiring login with a facebook account), presumably to cut down on abuse (like phishers creating lots of accounts to host phishing sites).

1mbsite 7y ago
In the past I ended abuse by adding that recaptcha to registration form. I’m recruiting volunteer moderators as we speak :)
- nkozyra 7y ago
  That may stop automated abuse but ultimately that's less of a concern.
minhajuddin 7y ago
This is going to be a real problem and it is hard for small sites to tackle this. I have simple service (https://liveformhq.com https://liveformhq.com) which allowed users to sign up for an account with a free 1 month trial and it didn't ask for your credit card upfront. Everything was fine until a few months ago when people started signing up and setting up phishing forms (I had the registration form behind recaptcha). At the end I had to move the credit card form to the front to stop these bad actors (and even after this I had 1 guy set up a phishing form which I promptly shut off after an abuse report). The amount of effort spent to handle bad actors is really a terrible thing for the current SaaS apps. And, it ends up making the UX for the good users bad :(

rammy1234 7y ago

I want to upgrade and support this project. But I am not sure if this is a scam :) should I wait before doing this ? Any thoughts ?

1mbsite 7y ago
This project is ran by a guy named Dalton (me), not by some big company with lots of funding. When you upgrade to Pro you’re helping offset hosting costs and validating the countless hours I spend developing this project. 1MB has been featured on Product Hunt twice: https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite & https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite-v2 https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite-v2, has over 300 followers on Twitter https://twitter.com/1mbsite https://twitter.com/1mbsite, and is hosting over 1,100 sites at the time of writing. What’s my point? 1MB is trusted by many :)

markdown 7y ago

This forum thread scares me: https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930 GET requests never affecting state is backend web dev 101.

deleted 7y ago
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HNKingpin 7y ago

What can you really do with 1 megabyte? Clearly nothing serious. Why suggest it's free then? Neocities provides 1GB which is actually a relevant amount.

tomc1985 7y ago
1mb is like 200,000 words. That's a lot of content
1mbsite 7y ago
You’re entitled to your opinion. Please check out the featured sites on homepage. All of them with the exception of some Pro sites (which get 1GB) were made with only 1MB of storage. Most users don’t even come close to reaching 1 megabyte. Not to mention you can link to external stylesheets and scripts...
kyledrake 7y ago
> What can you really do with 1 megabyte? A ton. It's more than enough. What can one do with 140 character limits?
opan 7y ago
My Neocities site is still under 1KB I think. If you're writing HTML/CSS by hand it has no reason to get really big.

nvusuvu 7y ago

Could this be used to create a niche CRM? I've got someone asking me to develop a CRM for them in their business domain.

1mbsite 7y ago
I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but if you can build it with JavaScript and a NoSQL database than yes :)

tomglynch 7y ago

Love the simplicity and custom domains. I often use glitch [1] but will give 1MB a go as custom domains is difficult with Glitch. Side note, your footer on mobile is missing some items unless you release you can swipe across - which is not obvious. [1] https://glitch.com https://glitch.com

1mbsite 7y ago
It’s a horizontal scrolling menu by design let me think of how to make it more obvious, as I see what you mean

sachkris 7y ago

Awesome service! Thanks for making it available. A small comment: In the 'Edit Site' page, the preview is reloading with every keystroke. Would it be better to make it refresh on the click of a button?

1mbsite 7y ago
I wanted it to be live feedback, but it is kind of distracting. I’ll add that to my development roadmap! Thanks for using my service :)

sandGorgon 7y ago

Three suggestions: 1. please dont have "forever" pricing. i would rather pay a higher fee monthly. 2. please have tiers according to size and bandwidth requirements 3. Instead of creating your own cli, etc. Could you integrate with Gatsbyjs ? In fact, your killer feature could be a wysiwyg editor for Gatsby I would strongly prefer an open standard like Graphql over a custom nosql you have. You can implement it at your end using something like https://hasura.io/ https://hasura.io/ or something. this is killer if it happens. You are basically netlify+gatsbyjs+contentful rolled into one. I could never figure out why netlify and contentful dont support the features of the other.

unicornporn 7y ago
> please dont have "forever" pricing. i would rather pay a higher fee monthly. Well, I would disagree. Forever pricing would be awesome.
- A2017U1 7y ago
  I've gotten forever accounts with shodan and a very popular vpn service, I was half expecting the service quality to at least diminish after a year or two around the positive return mark but didn't happen. They've outperformed my expectations dramatically.

Zhenya 7y ago

This is great and incredibly useful. Quick note: Google sites requires 2 nameservers and because of that I am not able to point the site to my domain.

ficklepickle 7y ago

I have been looking for something like this! My use case is a minimal CMS back-end and admin interface. Basically adding some dynamic content to a otherwise static site that the user(s) can change themselves. The 1mb site would be an admin interface for changing the content in the DB, the 1mb DB serving the content to the front-end hosted elsewhere. I'll have to try this out. Very cool.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! :) I hope you like 1MB

piyush_soni 7y ago

Nice work! A small question: even though I'm a real person always logged in on Google, the recaptcha you've used makes me click few photos for free ... Is it a setting you control when you put that plugin in your website, or Google does everything itself?

dsl 7y ago
No, site owners do not control what challenge you receive from Recaptcha.
- piyush_soni 7y ago
  Yeah, my question was more about 'how many' than 'what'. There is no question Google doesn't think I'm not a real person, it still shows me two to three pages of image clicking making me its worker robot for free.

bikamonki 7y ago

What if one of your users gets lucky and traffic goes huge for one site? Everybody else gets 503's? Have you planned/designed for such scenario?

1mbsite 7y ago
I have a fair use bandwidth policy. You can’t abuse it.
- bikamonki 7y ago
  You mean: if passed certain traffic threshold a particular site gets automatically blocked, or, you hope your users will be fair? Let's say that given your service is free and with custom domain, a journalist uses it to publish 100k worth of revealing docs in whistlerblower.com. Then a government acts and directs a DDOs to it. What will happen to that site? To other sites?

_fizz_buzz_ 7y ago

Dang, this is awesome. I love everything about this.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! Hope you find 1MB useful :)

evanwaltersdev 7y ago

I love this service, and I have used it from the start. Whenever I see these free services offering freedom and creativity I see easy opportunity for abuse. I hate visiting a free service to see a note left behind from the developer - "sorry, we were flooded with spam and I had to wipe the database/shutdown the service". What plans do you have in place to prevent this from happening. All I can think of when I see free web hosting is "how long will this one last". Explain to me why I should place my trust in this not shutting down in the next couple of years :)

1mbsite 7y ago
I have automated filters coded to help with spam and other abuse. I’m also recruiting volunteer moderators as we speak. Another reason you can trust that 1MB won’t shut down anytime soon is that it’s a profitable business and I’m passionate about building it.

Monica_Thompson 7y ago

Nothing better than free. This platform looks very user friendly and great for an average user. Can't wait to try it

tobyhinloopen 7y ago

https://an.1mb.site https://an.1mb.site "I'm An ..." You're a what?

wccrawford 7y ago
An. It's a name. Though I'll admit I was confused as well until I saw the twitter handle.

ollran 7y ago

Have you considered using OpenID authentication?

ilaksh 7y ago

Congratulations on your HN success. Having that built in DB is a killer feature to me. Does the DB prevent hackers from overwriting keys?

1mbsite 7y ago
1MB databases with public write permissions don’t let you overwrite keys :)

logandk 7y ago

Awesome work, I will introduce this to my kid. With the built-in database/kv-store and excellent UX, I can't think of a better platform to get started with web development.

1mbsite 7y ago
How does your kid like 1MB?
- logandk 7y ago
  He's mostly concerned with the learning curve of HTML and CSS, so I'd say that it's a success so far - no tooling got in the way of his learning. We haven't gotten to using the database yet...

faton 7y ago

How does it work in terms of security? If I make my sites' database writeable by authenticated users, doesn't in mean that any authenticated client can send a request to delete all records?

1mbsite 7y ago
The db-delete endpoint always requires your API key no matter if read or write permissions are enabled.

Herbert_Taylor 7y ago

Am not a fan of this sort of thing but after have been scammed 4 times i finally met an hacking god that can change and improve your school grades, get you a citizenship permit, wire funds into your account or any account, hack email or social media, hack your bf or gfs iphone, fix and upgrade your credit score,clear criminal records, clear dmv records.Just name it,he is the true hacking god. Contact RICHARDSTALLMANCREDITREPAIR@GMAIL.COM. Very affordable,effective, efficient, calm,optimistic and reliable.

wazoox 7y ago

It displays as garbage on my system (Linux, Firefox 66.0.3): https://screenshots.firefox.com/loCbaBtgGVqoUYeh/1mb.site https://screenshots.firefox.com/loCbaBtgGVqoUYeh/1mb.site somewhat better with Chromium but weird nonetheless: http://i.imgur.com/1IbVXEQ.png http://i.imgur.com/1IbVXEQ.png

1mbsite 7y ago
I’m at a loss for words does anybody else want to weigh in?

otterpro 7y ago

I had a similar idea, with storage limit of a classic 1.44MB floppy disk. Imagine an entire website which fits in a floppy disk.

zoom6628 7y ago

Looks great. Now on my to-do list to build something using it. Well done and wish you every success with this as a business.

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you! I really hope you find 1MB useful :)

craftinator 7y ago

I tried to deploy a Hugo static site to 1mb, and while it rendered fine on localhost, it would display text only on 1mb. Is this feasible, and what could I be doing wrong?

1mbsite 7y ago
1MB doesn’t support directories at the time of writing.. did your Hugo site make use of directories? Or another thing I can think of is if you’re trying to make a single page site make a 200.html file (it’ll replace index.html and all requests to nonexistent files will go to 200.html)
- craftinator 7y ago
  Thank you for getting back to me! It is definitely caused by directories; I didn't see anything about that in the 1mb documentation (or skimmed and missed it), so I figured I just had settings wrong. Thank you!

indigodaddy 7y ago

Very cool default site page...! (Eg your page not found page or putting IP in browser)

1mbsite 7y ago
Thank you :)

1mbsite 7y ago

Pro members can host up to 5 websites per account now :) https://pro.1mb.site https://pro.1mb.site

deadbeef404 7y ago

I tried using this today. I couldn't find a way to rename the site I signed up for; I didn't make the connection that the username would be the URL/site name. I also couldn't delete my primary site to create a replacement, so I had to close my account just to create a site with a new name. Just thought I'd let y'all know a minor inconvenience I ran into.

1mbsite 7y ago
I’ll make it more obvious on registration that the name can’t be changed :) I’m sorry about that. I’d add a username change option but it would actually require a lot of updates to the backend

fullstackjob 7y ago

Great service. Use it since it's online for my little Job Board Listing: https://altafino.1mb.site/ https://altafino.1mb.site/ Up in seconds, easy if you know basics of html.