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I look at IFTTT and Zapier and wonder what people use them for. Don't get me wrong, I think both have a target consumer but they feel expensive for what they ap

I look at IFTTT and Zapier and wonder what people use them for. Don't get me wrong, I think both have a target consumer but they feel expensive for what they appear to offer. I feel like if you're investing in automation the agnostic nature of owning and operating the code is more valuable than building into a walled system that relies on Internet connectivity and a SaaS service. OpenFaaS plus some Python could get you a long way on a $5/month VPS. Or... Pennies in any of the FaaS offerings wired up with cloud native tools. Or Node-RED? Are there any good OSS orchestration / automation frameworks out there that scratch this itch?

kevindong 6y ago
My main use for IFTTT is that they accept incoming webhooks to send push notifications to my phone via their app. Incredibly useful and convenient.
- dahx4Eev 6y ago
  Any examples of how you use the webhooks?
  - Namidairo 6y ago
    You basically just POST/GET url they provide with the json payload then hook it up to a notification service (whether that be their Android app, Telegram, etc.) Came in handy when I needed to poll something on my end, which would trigger the webhook when it met certain conditions.
  - kevindong 6y ago
    It's literally just: 1. Here's a URL (custom to each user/applet). You can either GET or POST to it. No auth/headers required (the URL includes a token). 2. You can optionally submit a JSON in the format of {"value1": ..., "value2": ..., "value3": ...} and set up the applet to set those values as the notification title, body, link, or image. Rather unfortunately, you can only specify three values in the JSON so you can only ever have three of those four properties filled in for a single notification. But you can set up multiple receiving URLs/applets such that you can send the first notification containing three of those properties and then a second notification containing the last property.
    - m-p-3 6y ago
      I hope we'll see more than three values as a possibility with IFTTT Pro.
- windexh8er 6y ago
  If that's your only use case - wouldn't Pushbullet (or something similar) be a more complete solution? Genuinely curious.
  - kevindong 6y ago
    Short answer is that yes, there are other options. But they're always vastly more complex and would require actual work to use. Why bother with all that when I can just issue a GET or POST to a simple HTTP endpoint (no auth/headers required) and have IFTTT fill in the title, message, link (if the notification is tapped), and image with the values in the uploaded JSON object? The IFTTT API is truly a joy to use as a someone trying to quickly hack something together using cURL. Re Pushbullet specifically: it no longer supports iOS but either way, it's also much more complex [0] to use. [0]: https://docs.pushbullet.com/#create-push https://docs.pushbullet.com/#create-push
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  If you can run a docker container and you have an Android phone, Gotify is a nice alternative for this use case.
  - kevindong 6y ago
    I have an iPhone so it's not really an option. That's a really interesting project that I'd definitely look into if I still had an Android phone.
muratsu 6y ago
We used Zapier at a previous startup to automate some gsuite tasks. It's really nice because it comes with monitoring and non-developers can edit/re-configure them if needed. It's expensive but headache free. You can find huginn[1] & n8n[2] interesting. https://github.com/huginn/huginn https://github.com/huginn/huginn https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/
MrStonedOne 6y ago
> and wonder what people use them for We use it to relay tweets to a discord channel webhook. The requirement was that it had to relay the tweet contents with no flair or "tweeted by" or link to the tweet, all discord bot solutions fail this requirement and i didn't want to learn how2tweeterapi.
m-p-3 6y ago
I currently use IFTTT mostly for the webhooks feature. I have some bots on Discord posting stuff from multiple sources, and not having to host my own server to do so is nice. I also use it to send important notifications from some of my servers to my phone. I just have to `curl` the info to IFTTT server with my API key and send the info I need.

kevindong 6y ago

My main use for IFTTT is that they accept incoming webhooks to send push notifications to my phone via their app. Incredibly useful and convenient.

dahx4Eev 6y ago
Any examples of how you use the webhooks?
- Namidairo 6y ago
  You basically just POST/GET url they provide with the json payload then hook it up to a notification service (whether that be their Android app, Telegram, etc.) Came in handy when I needed to poll something on my end, which would trigger the webhook when it met certain conditions.
- kevindong 6y ago
  It's literally just: 1. Here's a URL (custom to each user/applet). You can either GET or POST to it. No auth/headers required (the URL includes a token). 2. You can optionally submit a JSON in the format of {"value1": ..., "value2": ..., "value3": ...} and set up the applet to set those values as the notification title, body, link, or image. Rather unfortunately, you can only specify three values in the JSON so you can only ever have three of those four properties filled in for a single notification. But you can set up multiple receiving URLs/applets such that you can send the first notification containing three of those properties and then a second notification containing the last property.
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    I hope we'll see more than three values as a possibility with IFTTT Pro.
windexh8er 6y ago
If that's your only use case - wouldn't Pushbullet (or something similar) be a more complete solution? Genuinely curious.
- kevindong 6y ago
  Short answer is that yes, there are other options. But they're always vastly more complex and would require actual work to use. Why bother with all that when I can just issue a GET or POST to a simple HTTP endpoint (no auth/headers required) and have IFTTT fill in the title, message, link (if the notification is tapped), and image with the values in the uploaded JSON object? The IFTTT API is truly a joy to use as a someone trying to quickly hack something together using cURL. Re Pushbullet specifically: it no longer supports iOS but either way, it's also much more complex [0] to use. [0]: https://docs.pushbullet.com/#create-push https://docs.pushbullet.com/#create-push
CarelessExpert 6y ago
If you can run a docker container and you have an Android phone, Gotify is a nice alternative for this use case.
- kevindong 6y ago
  I have an iPhone so it's not really an option. That's a really interesting project that I'd definitely look into if I still had an Android phone.

muratsu 6y ago

We used Zapier at a previous startup to automate some gsuite tasks. It's really nice because it comes with monitoring and non-developers can edit/re-configure them if needed. It's expensive but headache free. You can find huginn[1] & n8n[2] interesting. https://github.com/huginn/huginn https://github.com/huginn/huginn https://n8n.io/ https://n8n.io/

MrStonedOne 6y ago

> and wonder what people use them for We use it to relay tweets to a discord channel webhook. The requirement was that it had to relay the tweet contents with no flair or "tweeted by" or link to the tweet, all discord bot solutions fail this requirement and i didn't want to learn how2tweeterapi.

m-p-3 6y ago

I currently use IFTTT mostly for the webhooks feature. I have some bots on Discord posting stuff from multiple sources, and not having to host my own server to do so is nice. I also use it to send important notifications from some of my servers to my phone. I just have to `curl` the info to IFTTT server with my API key and send the info I need.