17 ms·

Show HN: Pipedream. Develop any workflow, on any trigger, with auth and no infra

245 points by todsac 7y ago

todsac 7y ago
Co-founder here. We have been heads down working Pipedream for the past 9 months and are excited to share our beta with you. Pipedream is an integration platform built for developers. Develop any workflow, based on any trigger with authentication management built-in and no server or cloud resources to manage. Workflows are code, which you can run for free. The beta version includes the ability to: - Run any Node code, or use pre-built actions - Trigger workflows via HTTP, Cron, integrated apps or email - Create, share, and fork workflows from the community and - Send data to S3, Snowflake, email, SSE, and more. Coming soon — Develop locally and deploy workflows via CLI, SDK, and more. We think there’s a lot we can improve and are eager for feedback so please send us your ideas and opinions. Also, if you want a specific app or API fully integrated, let us know.
- michaelmior 7y ago
  If I can run workflows for free, how are you making money?
  - todsac 7y ago
    We believe anyone should be able to run simple, low-volume workflows at no cost, sharing their workflows with the public so everyone benefits from the work of others. We also want to foster a positive community where people feel good about sharing their work and where everyone can learn from one another. In the future, we may offer features available on paid tiers which would be logical enterprise features such as single sign on (SSO), team collaboration and higher SLAs and throughput. The constraints are listed in our docs - https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/
    - cpursley 7y ago
      So basically, people are going to build on top of your service and if yall don't figure out a revenue model, you'll need to close down shop, leaving people scrambling to migrate somewhere else... No thanks, I've been there before. You'd be better off just charging from the get-go. Otherwise, this should be 100% open source.
      - LyndsySimon 7y ago
        The workflows are Node.js code. If you need to transition away, building an abstraction layer for the stuff they provide that you use shouldn’t be too hard. It would be even cooler if they committed to open sourcing their implementation if they discontinue the service... The risk here seems small.
        alttab 7y ago
        The risk isn't small compared to the value add, especially if all they are doing is providing an abstraction layer that isn't "too hard." The value seems to be free hosting for the polling and scheduling. This isn't too different than IFTTT abstraction-wise, and is easily reproducible in AWS using data pipelines and lambdas. Why take an external dependency if what they are doing is rather simple? I'd argue you are right about the complexity. The hook of the service seems to be easy integration and lack of infrastructure requirements. At scale, a freemium model won't work. But it would provide initial traction for small use cases. This can be funded for a while without major rounds. The advice to monetize now versus building community and getting users / crowd sourcing plugins is solid if the aim isn't to open source it.
      - codezero 7y ago
        From your past experience, do you have anything constructive to tell this new team on how they can attempt to build a business without knowing the future that would make you more comfortable using it? I ask because I see a lot of these dismissive comments on HN which end with "open source it" - and that doesn't seem like a super constructive piece of advice to a new startup team. FWIW, at my current company, an analytics company, about five years ago, we made it clear that no matter what data we collected, if you leave the service or we shut down, we will get you all that data to take with you in a very reasonable format. It's always risky to invest in a new service, but sometimes risks bring great rewards, and I think it's helpful if you're giving input, to try to make it constructive.
    - michaelmior 7y ago
      Thanks for the response! I wasn't trying to rain on your parade, but having a reasonable revenue model in place does help give some confidence that 1) you're going to be around a while and 2) you're not selling data I don't want you to sell.
- Dev_2019 7y ago
  Sounds like a tool for devops. As a developer I would rather do extra work but on a mainstream cloud using a favourite language. Then again I am not in start-ups.
- sansnomme 7y ago
  Are you hosting your own serverless or using AWS?
  - dylburger 7y ago
    We use AWS as a part of our backend but run our own serverless platform on top of it. We're planning to share more about our stack in future engineering blogs, so keep an eye out for those!
    - toppy 7y ago
      Hopefully you're not building on top of SWF ;) Otherwise you will be out of money soon...
- LyndsySimon 7y ago
  This looks pretty awesome, even at this stage. I’d love the ability to write workflows in other languages (particularly Python), but understand that this seems pretty early-stage at this point and that might already be on the roadmap. Out of curiosity, are you hiring? I’d be interested in hearing what your longer-term plans are and am looking for something new. This seems right up my alley. ETA: I see from the article that Python is indeed coming. I’d love to be a part of that!
- LyndsySimon 7y ago
  FYI, your docs don’t display properly in Safari on iPadOS; the content is hidden behind the navigation, which doesn’t seem to be collapsible. Here’s a screenshot to show what I mean: https://imgur.com/a/d0SjEVt https://imgur.com/a/d0SjEVt Reader view exposes the content fine, so that’s a valid workaround for now.
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Thanks! Just rolled out a fix for this. Would you mind taking a look again?
    - arthurcolle 7y ago
      Not OP but I just checked - yes it works now on iPadOS (on Safari & Chrome).
    - LyndsySimon 7y ago
      Works great now :)
- chrismatheson 7y ago
  Forgive me if this is clean and I haven’t seen it I’m just browsing from a mobile device. With all workflow type services I’ve encountered I find that the actual underlying workflow can’t be managed under source control as one would do with (hopefully) most if not all application & infrastructure code. Can I “deploy” workflows from source control?
  - toppy 7y ago
    You can program Amazon SWF in Python with boto library. Example: http://boto.cloudhackers.com/en/latest/swf_tut.html http://boto.cloudhackers.com/en/latest/swf_tut.html As such you can manage this under source control. I assume similar projects exist for another cloud providers and languages.
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Hi, Dylan, a co-founder here. Deploying workflows from source via CLI or your CI/CD pipeline is in the works! We want you to host workflows on Github / Gitlab and be able to deploy them using your standard process. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you'd like more information and I can let you know when we're testing this. dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      Speaking of which, it's always overwhelming learning new tools. I know I can benefit from this, but at the same time I'm not sure I can risk trying it out given the time it will take to experiment and learn. I'd be using triggers based off Github commits and merges, but I don't see any specific examples for that and it's not exactly clear how the tutorial on the home page would translate to what I want to do so I currently feel deterred from giving it a whirl. Are there plans to create more tutorials? What kind of (rough) timeline can we expect to see more tutorials? BTW, love the name Pipedream!
      - dylburger 7y ago
        Thank you! I completely empathize with the time involved learning new tools. I'm happy to create a tutorial specific to your use case. We've built a few workflows to process Github events and I'd love to show you how this works end-to-end. Is there anything specific you'd like to do with the commit / merge events, just so I make sure the tutorial targets your use case? Feel free to reach out directly if you'd like to talk more at dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com.
- pdonis 7y ago
  From the intro article: (Yes, Python is coming.) +1
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Hi, Dylan, a co-founder here. I'm a Pythonista at heart and we're working on Python support as we speak! We'll let y'all know when we ship that.
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Just wanted to follow up to let you know we're starting work on Python soon. Feel free to subscribe to the issue here to get notified of our progress: https://github.com/PipedreamHQ/roadmap/issues/1 https://github.com/PipedreamHQ/roadmap/issues/1 .
- cbnotfromthere 7y ago
  I'm not trolling, but what's the difference between Pipedream and Microsoft Flow?
- michannne 7y ago
  Haha, damn nice job. I actually thought about this 1 yr ago and started working on something very similar, though it was more interactive. Even started an LLC and got a good prototype, but didn't have the time to work on it. Great work! This is incredibly useful stuff and can't wait to start trying it out
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Thank you so much for the kind words! Let us know if you have any feedback or questions.
xemdetia 7y ago
I do not feel that this is the best article to sell me on your product. It compensates for trying to describe a rock solid use case with a lot of links to other things with limited context (that are probably brilliant if you knew that context). If I wanted to watch a 15 minute video I would watch that instead. I feel like your pipedream.com landing page does a better job describing why I want to use your product. I wish this article was a more digestible single case as an introduction that showed value rather than saying 'you can run anything!!! for free!!!'
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, Pipedream founder here. I appreciate the honest feedback. The post is meant to articulate the depth of our vision for the platform. The hope was the linked workflows provide some inspiration and examples to make Pipedream a little more concrete. I'm glad the homepage resonated with you. Did you get a chance to sign up and use the tool? We're looking for specific feedback from devs on how we can improve so I'd love if you had any time to build a workflow and share your thoughts.
  - dang 7y ago
    It's more standard for a Show HN to link to the home page and then include a link to the article in the thread. We'll put that above.
    - penagwin 7y ago
      You're an awesome moderator :D
    - dylburger 7y ago
      Awesome, thank you dang!
dang 7y ago
https://medium.com/@todsacerdoti/introducing-pipedream-bbca9dde0dc6 https://medium.com/@todsacerdoti/introducing-pipedream-bbca9... is an accompanying article. Was originally the submitted URL.
lukevp 7y ago
How's this going to be monetized? What sort of execution limits are there?
- todsac 7y ago
  We believe anyone should be able to run simple, low-volume workflows at no cost, sharing their workflows with the public so everyone benefits from the work of others. We also want to foster a positive community where people feel good about sharing their work and where everyone can learn from one another. In the future, we may offer features available on paid tiers which would be logical enterprise features such as single sign on (SSO), team collaboration and higher SLAs and throughput. The constraints are listed in our docs - https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zocuments 7y ago
    What framework/template are you using for docs.pipedream? They look great. PS: On Desktop, the left third of the Pricing content/copy is rendered behind the menu.
    - dylburger 7y ago
      Thanks for letting us know, I just rolled out a fix to the hidden content. Can you let me know if you're still seeing the issue? We use Vuepress for the docs and it's awesome! https://vuepress.vuejs.org https://vuepress.vuejs.org
      - zocuments 7y ago
        Looks good now!
zimmund 7y ago
It looks like an interesting alternative to Zapier (or its open source counterpart n8n [1]). As a potential user, before even trying the tool I'd like to know how are you planning to monetize it. Free sounds awesome, but you'll get to a point where it costs you actual money to keep all this working. I don't want to waste my time creating pipelines in a tool that won't exist in a year or two -or that will become paid and break my existing workflows (or make me expend money unexpectedly)-. [1]: https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/
- todsac 7y ago
  We believe anyone should be able to run simple, low-volume workflows at no cost, sharing their workflows with the public so everyone benefits from the work of others. We also want to foster a positive community where people feel good about sharing their work and where everyone can learn from one another. In the future, we may offer features available on paid tiers which would be logical enterprise features such as single sign on (SSO), team collaboration and higher SLAs and throughput. The constraints are listed in our docs - https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zimmund 7y ago
    Thanks for your reply! But it doesn't answer my question: I'm worried about how you will sustain your platform in the long run for all those free tier users. Learning a new tool -even if it's friendly and has a community around it- takes time and effort. We want to know it will be there in the future. That's why I'm interested to know: how are you planning to keep Pipedream alive for, let's say, the next 5 years?
- pritambaral 7y ago
  > or its open source counterpart n8n Unfortunately, n8n is not[1] Open Source, despite claiming to be "Open Source and so free" on their website[2]. 1: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/blob/master/LICENSE.md 2: https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/
deleted 7y ago
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tmikaeld 7y ago
The usual question, how they monetize the service? It's answered here[1], along with limitations[2]: - 100kb max body-size. - Rate-limit at 10 requests per second - 10 seconds per execution for HTTP triggers, and 30 seconds for cron triggers - 192 MB of memory for your code and libraries during workflow execution - 512 MB of disk in the /tmp directory. [1]https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ [2]https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/#limits https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/#limits
- haggy 7y ago
  This isn't an answer to how they might monetize this service and quite frankly I've seen the OP/Co-Founder post their "answer" to this question on multiple other comments and it's extremely hand-wavy. I currently have little to no faith that this product isn't going to leave anyone that uses it stranded in a year or so when they have to shutdown due to lack of revenue.
  - tmikaeld 7y ago
    I really don't like it when new services leave out the pricing and hide it under "contact us". Testing and trying something new requires time and effort, which is limited, especially for companies that would be interested, if pricing/future isn't crystal clear, why make the effort?
    - todsac 7y ago
      Pricing is on our home page, above the fold. It says “free.”
      - tmikaeld 7y ago
        You need to address the cost of scalability, free isn't a price and there's clearly a price somewhere along the line.
        todsac 7y ago
l1n 7y ago
Possible alternative for self-hosted applications: https://github.com/huginn/huginn/ https://github.com/huginn/huginn/
- sdan 7y ago
  One quick glance on this: this is amazing!
  - joshstrange 7y ago
    If you want something that works really well with nodejs there is also Node-RED [0]. [0] https://nodered.org/ https://nodered.org/
- johnx123-up 7y ago
  Few others: 1. https://www.flogo.io/ https://www.flogo.io/ (Go) 2. https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/ (Recently featured in HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21192132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21192132 )
atarian 7y ago
What security measures are in place to deal with malicious code from other users?
- atarian 7y ago
  Since you guys haven't answered, I'm going to assume there is no such security in place.
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Hi, this is Dylan, a co-founder and engineer. I'm sorry we didn't get back to you sooner. It's tough to respond to every single comment on a Hacker News thread and we've been quite busy with launch. Hope you can sympathize. Your code runs in its own Node execution environment and VM, completely isolated from other users' code. Happy to answer any other specific questions you have! Feel free to reach me at dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com .
linuxdude314 7y ago
Why would I use this instead of an option built into a major cloud provider such as AWS, GCP, or Azure? How do you differentiate yourself. Do you (or will you) support frameworks like Serverless?
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, Dylan, a co-founder here. It's a great question. We've found that for integrations or common automations, building on a cloud platform is too low-level. You've got to manage a number of services that aren't core to your use case (e.g. API Gateway, IAM, Cloudwatch Logs, etc.). We operate at a higher level and just give you an execution environment to run Node.js code or stitch together pre-built actions, similar to integration platforms like Zapier. Of course, Serverless and other frameworks abstract part of the cloud services, but you're still running on that platform, and when you need to troubleshoot or scale the service, it's likely you'll have to peek under the covers. We tried to build a serverless platform from the ground up and provide services like the HTTP server, key-value store, logs, and other services right inside the UI, or accessible in code. There's no other cloud resources to manage or monitor. This kind of abstraction isn't great for every application, but we think it shines when you're building integrations or data pipelines that aren't part of your core app. The pre-built actions and built-in OAuth / key-based auth also operate at a higher level than most cloud services. We've tried to provide these in a developer-friendly way, so you have full control over how your workflow runs, but don't have to manage the parts that are tangential to the logic of your app. As we expose more APIs for building and running workflows, we'd love to support a framework like Serverless. I'd love if you have time to give Pipedream a try and see how it works for yourself! We're looking for feedback on how we can improve so we'd love more eyes on it.
  - pevezzac 7y ago
    How would you differentiate yourself from Microsoft Flow?
    - dylburger 7y ago
      I haven't used Microsoft Flow in depth so I unfortunately can't comment. If you've used it and like it, I'd honestly love for you to give Pipedream a try and tell us where we can improve compared to your experience with other tools. We'd love the feedback! dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com
grafcet_online 7y ago
free until when :)
saarsaar 7y ago
WOOHOO!!! Congrats on the launch!!!
therealmarv 7y ago
Name reminds me of a big adult novelties brand and company.
magicalhippo 7y ago
> Develop any workflow, based on any trigger As far as I can see the above should come with a footnote saying "for some value of any". Looks very cool, despite being entirely web-centric.
keithwhor 7y ago
Congrats on launching! I'm a founder of a startup in the same space, so just wanted to say good luck. I love the name. It's exciting to see so many folks working on making connective developer tooling a better experience. I had a link originally included in here but -- you guys should enjoy your launch. I understand and have a great deal of empathy for the effort it takes to build and launch something new. Enjoy all of it, and keep up the good work. - Keith
- dylburger 7y ago
  Keith, this is Dylan, a co-founder. We've been very impressed with what y'all are building at Standard Library and I agree it's a great time to be working on developer integration tools! Thanks for the note.
davidthewatson 7y ago
I'd have an easier time evaluating pipedream if I got something other than a blank page when clicking through to the website from my mac running chrome.
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi David, this is Dylan, a co-founder. I'd love if you had the time to send me a screenshot of what you're seeing, with your Developer Tools Console open in Chrome, if you don't mind. It'd be a huge help! dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com
jcmontx 7y ago
I like it but I don't fully get it. Why use this service and not Lambda or Azure Functions?
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, this is Dylan, a co-founder. It's a great question. Having built many applications on Lambda this is something I think about a lot :) . We've found that for integrations or common automations, building on a cloud platform is too low-level. Frequently you're working with more than just a Lambda. You've got to manage a number of services that aren't core to your use case (e.g. API Gateway, IAM, Cloudwatch Logs, etc.). There's a lot of boilerplate config, and many of these services are tangential to the core logic of your app. We operate at a higher level and just give you an execution environment to run Node.js code or stitch together pre-built actions, similar to integration platforms like Zapier. We manage the HTTP endpoint, function config, and give you built-in observability. We also provide higher-level services, like built-in app integrations and OAuth / API key-based authorization. Building this yourself on AWS can take time. This kind of abstraction isn't great for every application, but we think it shines when you're building integrations between services. Let me know if that answers your questions, or if you have any more!
dylburger 7y ago
Hi y’all, this is Dylan, a Pipedream engineer and co-founder. We launched today to get early feedback from developers on what we’ve built and we’ve received a lot of thoughtful comments. Thank you to everyone who signed up! I especially appreciate the discussion around how and why Pipedream is free, and the concerns around the lack of a visible, scalable paid tier. Those concerns are valid and I want to give you a little more insight into our thinking on this and what the future holds. Workflows created by one developer can be forked, run, and modified by others. We all build a lot of the same integrations across companies and believe if this code is shared and executed on a common platform that’s purpose-built for running these workflows, it’ll save us all a lot of time. We’ve worked with thousands of alpha users to understand how they’re using the product and considered what features enterprises ultimately will want and need to pay for. These include: higher workflow limits, private workflows and actions, SLAs, premium support, and more. We didn’t launch with that today because we’re focused on getting feedback from individual developers who will be the majority of users moving forward. Of course, you can’t run a business solely on free workflows. We’ve set some limits on these workflows that help us control excessive use [1]. Our team has a wealth of collective experience scaling software companies on the business and tech side, and we have confidence that we’ll be able to retain a generous free tier while building a sustainable business. I empathize with the skepticism of Pipedream and of hosted platforms in general, and welcome any more specific questions. We truly love feedback. We’ve implemented some ideas that we believe facilitate the developer experience for building workflows but are looking for y’all to test that, validate or invalidate it, and give us specific thoughts as you have time. dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com [1] https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/ https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/
zlagen 7y ago
The example demo looks very slick! it looks like Zapier but a bit more low level. Also for anyone interested in running functions but not interested in handling the complexity of aws lambda I'd check Cloudflare workers https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/
pythonwutang 7y ago
How does this differ from Amazon Lambda? Only read the landing page so far but it looks like Lambda with just Node support. Can someone correct me if I’m off?
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, this is Dylan, a co-founder. It's a great question. Having built many applications on Lambda this is something I think about a lot :) . We've found that for integrations or common automations, building on a cloud platform is too low-level. Frequently you're working with more than just a Lambda. You've got to manage a number of services that aren't core to your use case (e.g. API Gateway, IAM, Cloudwatch Logs, etc.). There's a lot of boilerplate config, and many of these services are tangential to the core logic of your app. We operate at a higher level and just give you an execution environment to run Node.js code or stitch together pre-built actions, similar to integration platforms like Zapier. We manage the HTTP endpoint, function config, and give you built-in observability. We also provide higher-level services, like built-in app integrations and OAuth / API key-based authorization. Building this yourself on AWS can take time. This kind of abstraction isn't great for every application, but we think it shines when you're building integrations between services. I'd love if you had time to sign up and see how this works! It's free to use and we'd love the feedback. Let me know if that answers your questions, or if you have any more!
- TheSpiciestDev 7y ago
  Your comment has me imagine a more visual, GUI-based editor on top of AWS Lambda (i.e. hooking up all sorts or internal/external events, tying workflows or multiple Lambdas together, still including a small editor for writing JavaScript, etc.) I mean, you can write code in-line with AWS Lambda but to have an application help setup multiple Lambdas and/or integrate outside APIs would be pretty neat.
  - dylburger 7y ago
    That's spot on! Take a look at our intro video for an end-to-end overview of how to use the tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivkE26ZsyUo&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivkE26ZsyUo&feature=youtu.be . I'd love if you had the chance to sign up. It's free to use and we'd love the feedback.

245 points by todsac 7y ago

Co-founder here. We have been heads down working Pipedream for the past 9 months and are excited to share our beta with you. Pipedream is an integration platform built for developers. Develop any workflow, based on any trigger with authentication management built-in and no server or cloud resources to manage. Workflows are code, which you can run for free. The beta version includes the ability to: - Run any Node code, or use pre-built actions - Trigger workflows via HTTP, Cron, integrated apps or email - Create, share, and fork workflows from the community and - Send data to S3, Snowflake, email, SSE, and more. Coming soon — Develop locally and deploy workflows via CLI, SDK, and more. We think there’s a lot we can improve and are eager for feedback so please send us your ideas and opinions. Also, if you want a specific app or API fully integrated, let us know.

michaelmior 7y ago
If I can run workflows for free, how are you making money?
- todsac 7y ago
  We believe anyone should be able to run simple, low-volume workflows at no cost, sharing their workflows with the public so everyone benefits from the work of others. We also want to foster a positive community where people feel good about sharing their work and where everyone can learn from one another. In the future, we may offer features available on paid tiers which would be logical enterprise features such as single sign on (SSO), team collaboration and higher SLAs and throughput. The constraints are listed in our docs - https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/
  - cpursley 7y ago
    So basically, people are going to build on top of your service and if yall don't figure out a revenue model, you'll need to close down shop, leaving people scrambling to migrate somewhere else... No thanks, I've been there before. You'd be better off just charging from the get-go. Otherwise, this should be 100% open source.
    - LyndsySimon 7y ago
      The workflows are Node.js code. If you need to transition away, building an abstraction layer for the stuff they provide that you use shouldn’t be too hard. It would be even cooler if they committed to open sourcing their implementation if they discontinue the service... The risk here seems small.
      - alttab 7y ago
        The risk isn't small compared to the value add, especially if all they are doing is providing an abstraction layer that isn't "too hard." The value seems to be free hosting for the polling and scheduling. This isn't too different than IFTTT abstraction-wise, and is easily reproducible in AWS using data pipelines and lambdas. Why take an external dependency if what they are doing is rather simple? I'd argue you are right about the complexity. The hook of the service seems to be easy integration and lack of infrastructure requirements. At scale, a freemium model won't work. But it would provide initial traction for small use cases. This can be funded for a while without major rounds. The advice to monetize now versus building community and getting users / crowd sourcing plugins is solid if the aim isn't to open source it.
    - codezero 7y ago
      From your past experience, do you have anything constructive to tell this new team on how they can attempt to build a business without knowing the future that would make you more comfortable using it? I ask because I see a lot of these dismissive comments on HN which end with "open source it" - and that doesn't seem like a super constructive piece of advice to a new startup team. FWIW, at my current company, an analytics company, about five years ago, we made it clear that no matter what data we collected, if you leave the service or we shut down, we will get you all that data to take with you in a very reasonable format. It's always risky to invest in a new service, but sometimes risks bring great rewards, and I think it's helpful if you're giving input, to try to make it constructive.
  - michaelmior 7y ago
    Thanks for the response! I wasn't trying to rain on your parade, but having a reasonable revenue model in place does help give some confidence that 1) you're going to be around a while and 2) you're not selling data I don't want you to sell.
Dev_2019 7y ago
Sounds like a tool for devops. As a developer I would rather do extra work but on a mainstream cloud using a favourite language. Then again I am not in start-ups.
sansnomme 7y ago
Are you hosting your own serverless or using AWS?
- dylburger 7y ago
  We use AWS as a part of our backend but run our own serverless platform on top of it. We're planning to share more about our stack in future engineering blogs, so keep an eye out for those!
  - toppy 7y ago
    Hopefully you're not building on top of SWF ;) Otherwise you will be out of money soon...
LyndsySimon 7y ago
This looks pretty awesome, even at this stage. I’d love the ability to write workflows in other languages (particularly Python), but understand that this seems pretty early-stage at this point and that might already be on the roadmap. Out of curiosity, are you hiring? I’d be interested in hearing what your longer-term plans are and am looking for something new. This seems right up my alley. ETA: I see from the article that Python is indeed coming. I’d love to be a part of that!
LyndsySimon 7y ago
FYI, your docs don’t display properly in Safari on iPadOS; the content is hidden behind the navigation, which doesn’t seem to be collapsible. Here’s a screenshot to show what I mean: https://imgur.com/a/d0SjEVt https://imgur.com/a/d0SjEVt Reader view exposes the content fine, so that’s a valid workaround for now.
- dylburger 7y ago
  Thanks! Just rolled out a fix for this. Would you mind taking a look again?
  - arthurcolle 7y ago
    Not OP but I just checked - yes it works now on iPadOS (on Safari & Chrome).
  - LyndsySimon 7y ago
    Works great now :)
chrismatheson 7y ago
Forgive me if this is clean and I haven’t seen it I’m just browsing from a mobile device. With all workflow type services I’ve encountered I find that the actual underlying workflow can’t be managed under source control as one would do with (hopefully) most if not all application & infrastructure code. Can I “deploy” workflows from source control?
- toppy 7y ago
  You can program Amazon SWF in Python with boto library. Example: http://boto.cloudhackers.com/en/latest/swf_tut.html http://boto.cloudhackers.com/en/latest/swf_tut.html As such you can manage this under source control. I assume similar projects exist for another cloud providers and languages.
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, Dylan, a co-founder here. Deploying workflows from source via CLI or your CI/CD pipeline is in the works! We want you to host workflows on Github / Gitlab and be able to deploy them using your standard process. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you'd like more information and I can let you know when we're testing this. dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    Speaking of which, it's always overwhelming learning new tools. I know I can benefit from this, but at the same time I'm not sure I can risk trying it out given the time it will take to experiment and learn. I'd be using triggers based off Github commits and merges, but I don't see any specific examples for that and it's not exactly clear how the tutorial on the home page would translate to what I want to do so I currently feel deterred from giving it a whirl. Are there plans to create more tutorials? What kind of (rough) timeline can we expect to see more tutorials? BTW, love the name Pipedream!
    - dylburger 7y ago
      Thank you! I completely empathize with the time involved learning new tools. I'm happy to create a tutorial specific to your use case. We've built a few workflows to process Github events and I'd love to show you how this works end-to-end. Is there anything specific you'd like to do with the commit / merge events, just so I make sure the tutorial targets your use case? Feel free to reach out directly if you'd like to talk more at dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com.
pdonis 7y ago
From the intro article: (Yes, Python is coming.) +1
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, Dylan, a co-founder here. I'm a Pythonista at heart and we're working on Python support as we speak! We'll let y'all know when we ship that.
- dylburger 7y ago
  Just wanted to follow up to let you know we're starting work on Python soon. Feel free to subscribe to the issue here to get notified of our progress: https://github.com/PipedreamHQ/roadmap/issues/1 https://github.com/PipedreamHQ/roadmap/issues/1 .
cbnotfromthere 7y ago
I'm not trolling, but what's the difference between Pipedream and Microsoft Flow?
michannne 7y ago
Haha, damn nice job. I actually thought about this 1 yr ago and started working on something very similar, though it was more interactive. Even started an LLC and got a good prototype, but didn't have the time to work on it. Great work! This is incredibly useful stuff and can't wait to start trying it out
- dylburger 7y ago
  Thank you so much for the kind words! Let us know if you have any feedback or questions.

xemdetia 7y ago

I do not feel that this is the best article to sell me on your product. It compensates for trying to describe a rock solid use case with a lot of links to other things with limited context (that are probably brilliant if you knew that context). If I wanted to watch a 15 minute video I would watch that instead. I feel like your pipedream.com landing page does a better job describing why I want to use your product. I wish this article was a more digestible single case as an introduction that showed value rather than saying 'you can run anything!!! for free!!!'

dylburger 7y ago
Hi, Pipedream founder here. I appreciate the honest feedback. The post is meant to articulate the depth of our vision for the platform. The hope was the linked workflows provide some inspiration and examples to make Pipedream a little more concrete. I'm glad the homepage resonated with you. Did you get a chance to sign up and use the tool? We're looking for specific feedback from devs on how we can improve so I'd love if you had any time to build a workflow and share your thoughts.
- dang 7y ago
  It's more standard for a Show HN to link to the home page and then include a link to the article in the thread. We'll put that above.
  - penagwin 7y ago
    You're an awesome moderator :D
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Awesome, thank you dang!

dang 7y ago

https://medium.com/@todsacerdoti/introducing-pipedream-bbca9dde0dc6 https://medium.com/@todsacerdoti/introducing-pipedream-bbca9... is an accompanying article. Was originally the submitted URL.

lukevp 7y ago

How's this going to be monetized? What sort of execution limits are there?

todsac 7y ago
We believe anyone should be able to run simple, low-volume workflows at no cost, sharing their workflows with the public so everyone benefits from the work of others. We also want to foster a positive community where people feel good about sharing their work and where everyone can learn from one another. In the future, we may offer features available on paid tiers which would be logical enterprise features such as single sign on (SSO), team collaboration and higher SLAs and throughput. The constraints are listed in our docs - https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zocuments 7y ago
  What framework/template are you using for docs.pipedream? They look great. PS: On Desktop, the left third of the Pricing content/copy is rendered behind the menu.
  - dylburger 7y ago
    Thanks for letting us know, I just rolled out a fix to the hidden content. Can you let me know if you're still seeing the issue? We use Vuepress for the docs and it's awesome! https://vuepress.vuejs.org https://vuepress.vuejs.org
    - zocuments 7y ago
      Looks good now!

zimmund 7y ago

It looks like an interesting alternative to Zapier (or its open source counterpart n8n [1]). As a potential user, before even trying the tool I'd like to know how are you planning to monetize it. Free sounds awesome, but you'll get to a point where it costs you actual money to keep all this working. I don't want to waste my time creating pipelines in a tool that won't exist in a year or two -or that will become paid and break my existing workflows (or make me expend money unexpectedly)-. [1]: https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/

todsac 7y ago
We believe anyone should be able to run simple, low-volume workflows at no cost, sharing their workflows with the public so everyone benefits from the work of others. We also want to foster a positive community where people feel good about sharing their work and where everyone can learn from one another. In the future, we may offer features available on paid tiers which would be logical enterprise features such as single sign on (SSO), team collaboration and higher SLAs and throughput. The constraints are listed in our docs - https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zimmund 7y ago
  Thanks for your reply! But it doesn't answer my question: I'm worried about how you will sustain your platform in the long run for all those free tier users. Learning a new tool -even if it's friendly and has a community around it- takes time and effort. We want to know it will be there in the future. That's why I'm interested to know: how are you planning to keep Pipedream alive for, let's say, the next 5 years?
pritambaral 7y ago
> or its open source counterpart n8n Unfortunately, n8n is not[1] Open Source, despite claiming to be "Open Source and so free" on their website[2]. 1: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/blob/master/LICENSE.md 2: https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

tmikaeld 7y ago

The usual question, how they monetize the service? It's answered here[1], along with limitations[2]: - 100kb max body-size. - Rate-limit at 10 requests per second - 10 seconds per execution for HTTP triggers, and 30 seconds for cron triggers - 192 MB of memory for your code and libraries during workflow execution - 512 MB of disk in the /tmp directory. [1]https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ https://docs.pipedream.com/pricing/ [2]https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/#limits https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/#limits

haggy 7y ago
This isn't an answer to how they might monetize this service and quite frankly I've seen the OP/Co-Founder post their "answer" to this question on multiple other comments and it's extremely hand-wavy. I currently have little to no faith that this product isn't going to leave anyone that uses it stranded in a year or so when they have to shutdown due to lack of revenue.
- tmikaeld 7y ago
  I really don't like it when new services leave out the pricing and hide it under "contact us". Testing and trying something new requires time and effort, which is limited, especially for companies that would be interested, if pricing/future isn't crystal clear, why make the effort?
  - todsac 7y ago
    Pricing is on our home page, above the fold. It says “free.”
    - tmikaeld 7y ago
      You need to address the cost of scalability, free isn't a price and there's clearly a price somewhere along the line.
      - todsac 7y ago

l1n 7y ago

Possible alternative for self-hosted applications: https://github.com/huginn/huginn/ https://github.com/huginn/huginn/

sdan 7y ago
One quick glance on this: this is amazing!
- joshstrange 7y ago
  If you want something that works really well with nodejs there is also Node-RED [0]. [0] https://nodered.org/ https://nodered.org/
johnx123-up 7y ago
Few others: 1. https://www.flogo.io/ https://www.flogo.io/ (Go) 2. https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/ (Recently featured in HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21192132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21192132 )

atarian 7y ago

What security measures are in place to deal with malicious code from other users?

atarian 7y ago
Since you guys haven't answered, I'm going to assume there is no such security in place.
- dylburger 7y ago
  Hi, this is Dylan, a co-founder and engineer. I'm sorry we didn't get back to you sooner. It's tough to respond to every single comment on a Hacker News thread and we've been quite busy with launch. Hope you can sympathize. Your code runs in its own Node execution environment and VM, completely isolated from other users' code. Happy to answer any other specific questions you have! Feel free to reach me at dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com .

linuxdude314 7y ago

Why would I use this instead of an option built into a major cloud provider such as AWS, GCP, or Azure? How do you differentiate yourself. Do you (or will you) support frameworks like Serverless?

dylburger 7y ago
Hi, Dylan, a co-founder here. It's a great question. We've found that for integrations or common automations, building on a cloud platform is too low-level. You've got to manage a number of services that aren't core to your use case (e.g. API Gateway, IAM, Cloudwatch Logs, etc.). We operate at a higher level and just give you an execution environment to run Node.js code or stitch together pre-built actions, similar to integration platforms like Zapier. Of course, Serverless and other frameworks abstract part of the cloud services, but you're still running on that platform, and when you need to troubleshoot or scale the service, it's likely you'll have to peek under the covers. We tried to build a serverless platform from the ground up and provide services like the HTTP server, key-value store, logs, and other services right inside the UI, or accessible in code. There's no other cloud resources to manage or monitor. This kind of abstraction isn't great for every application, but we think it shines when you're building integrations or data pipelines that aren't part of your core app. The pre-built actions and built-in OAuth / key-based auth also operate at a higher level than most cloud services. We've tried to provide these in a developer-friendly way, so you have full control over how your workflow runs, but don't have to manage the parts that are tangential to the logic of your app. As we expose more APIs for building and running workflows, we'd love to support a framework like Serverless. I'd love if you have time to give Pipedream a try and see how it works for yourself! We're looking for feedback on how we can improve so we'd love more eyes on it.
- pevezzac 7y ago
  How would you differentiate yourself from Microsoft Flow?
  - dylburger 7y ago
    I haven't used Microsoft Flow in depth so I unfortunately can't comment. If you've used it and like it, I'd honestly love for you to give Pipedream a try and tell us where we can improve compared to your experience with other tools. We'd love the feedback! dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com

grafcet_online 7y ago

free until when :)

saarsaar 7y ago

WOOHOO!!! Congrats on the launch!!!

therealmarv 7y ago

Name reminds me of a big adult novelties brand and company.

magicalhippo 7y ago

> Develop any workflow, based on any trigger As far as I can see the above should come with a footnote saying "for some value of any". Looks very cool, despite being entirely web-centric.

keithwhor 7y ago

Congrats on launching! I'm a founder of a startup in the same space, so just wanted to say good luck. I love the name. It's exciting to see so many folks working on making connective developer tooling a better experience. I had a link originally included in here but -- you guys should enjoy your launch. I understand and have a great deal of empathy for the effort it takes to build and launch something new. Enjoy all of it, and keep up the good work. - Keith

dylburger 7y ago
Keith, this is Dylan, a co-founder. We've been very impressed with what y'all are building at Standard Library and I agree it's a great time to be working on developer integration tools! Thanks for the note.

davidthewatson 7y ago

I'd have an easier time evaluating pipedream if I got something other than a blank page when clicking through to the website from my mac running chrome.

dylburger 7y ago
Hi David, this is Dylan, a co-founder. I'd love if you had the time to send me a screenshot of what you're seeing, with your Developer Tools Console open in Chrome, if you don't mind. It'd be a huge help! dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com

jcmontx 7y ago

I like it but I don't fully get it. Why use this service and not Lambda or Azure Functions?

dylburger 7y ago
Hi, this is Dylan, a co-founder. It's a great question. Having built many applications on Lambda this is something I think about a lot :) . We've found that for integrations or common automations, building on a cloud platform is too low-level. Frequently you're working with more than just a Lambda. You've got to manage a number of services that aren't core to your use case (e.g. API Gateway, IAM, Cloudwatch Logs, etc.). There's a lot of boilerplate config, and many of these services are tangential to the core logic of your app. We operate at a higher level and just give you an execution environment to run Node.js code or stitch together pre-built actions, similar to integration platforms like Zapier. We manage the HTTP endpoint, function config, and give you built-in observability. We also provide higher-level services, like built-in app integrations and OAuth / API key-based authorization. Building this yourself on AWS can take time. This kind of abstraction isn't great for every application, but we think it shines when you're building integrations between services. Let me know if that answers your questions, or if you have any more!

dylburger 7y ago

Hi y’all, this is Dylan, a Pipedream engineer and co-founder. We launched today to get early feedback from developers on what we’ve built and we’ve received a lot of thoughtful comments. Thank you to everyone who signed up! I especially appreciate the discussion around how and why Pipedream is free, and the concerns around the lack of a visible, scalable paid tier. Those concerns are valid and I want to give you a little more insight into our thinking on this and what the future holds. Workflows created by one developer can be forked, run, and modified by others. We all build a lot of the same integrations across companies and believe if this code is shared and executed on a common platform that’s purpose-built for running these workflows, it’ll save us all a lot of time. We’ve worked with thousands of alpha users to understand how they’re using the product and considered what features enterprises ultimately will want and need to pay for. These include: higher workflow limits, private workflows and actions, SLAs, premium support, and more. We didn’t launch with that today because we’re focused on getting feedback from individual developers who will be the majority of users moving forward. Of course, you can’t run a business solely on free workflows. We’ve set some limits on these workflows that help us control excessive use [1]. Our team has a wealth of collective experience scaling software companies on the business and tech side, and we have confidence that we’ll be able to retain a generous free tier while building a sustainable business. I empathize with the skepticism of Pipedream and of hosted platforms in general, and welcome any more specific questions. We truly love feedback. We’ve implemented some ideas that we believe facilitate the developer experience for building workflows but are looking for y’all to test that, validate or invalidate it, and give us specific thoughts as you have time. dylan [at] pipedream [dot] com [1] https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/ https://docs.pipedream.com/limits/

zlagen 7y ago

The example demo looks very slick! it looks like Zapier but a bit more low level. Also for anyone interested in running functions but not interested in handling the complexity of aws lambda I'd check Cloudflare workers https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/ https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/

pythonwutang 7y ago

How does this differ from Amazon Lambda? Only read the landing page so far but it looks like Lambda with just Node support. Can someone correct me if I’m off?

dylburger 7y ago
Hi, this is Dylan, a co-founder. It's a great question. Having built many applications on Lambda this is something I think about a lot :) . We've found that for integrations or common automations, building on a cloud platform is too low-level. Frequently you're working with more than just a Lambda. You've got to manage a number of services that aren't core to your use case (e.g. API Gateway, IAM, Cloudwatch Logs, etc.). There's a lot of boilerplate config, and many of these services are tangential to the core logic of your app. We operate at a higher level and just give you an execution environment to run Node.js code or stitch together pre-built actions, similar to integration platforms like Zapier. We manage the HTTP endpoint, function config, and give you built-in observability. We also provide higher-level services, like built-in app integrations and OAuth / API key-based authorization. Building this yourself on AWS can take time. This kind of abstraction isn't great for every application, but we think it shines when you're building integrations between services. I'd love if you had time to sign up and see how this works! It's free to use and we'd love the feedback. Let me know if that answers your questions, or if you have any more!
TheSpiciestDev 7y ago
Your comment has me imagine a more visual, GUI-based editor on top of AWS Lambda (i.e. hooking up all sorts or internal/external events, tying workflows or multiple Lambdas together, still including a small editor for writing JavaScript, etc.) I mean, you can write code in-line with AWS Lambda but to have an application help setup multiple Lambdas and/or integrate outside APIs would be pretty neat.
- dylburger 7y ago
  That's spot on! Take a look at our intro video for an end-to-end overview of how to use the tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivkE26ZsyUo&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivkE26ZsyUo&feature=youtu.be . I'd love if you had the chance to sign up. It's free to use and we'd love the feedback.