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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 platfo

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.
      - edoceo 7y ago
        I think the point is: monitize now to reduce risk
  - 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.

by todsac 7y ago

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.
    - edoceo 7y ago
      I think the point is: monitize now to reduce risk
- 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.