7 ms·

Show HN: Meli, a Netlify-like platform for deploying static sites

133 points by gempain 6y ago

gempain 6y ago
Hi there ! We used to host our sites on Netlify, but our eyes fill with glitter when we hear open source and self-hosted. So, we built Meli, which essentially is a Netlify alternative that lets you deploy static sites and frontend applications with ease, featuring per-branch deployments, web/slack/mattermost/email hooks, an API, and a way to manage organizations, teams and sites easily. We built Meli on top of Caddy, a very powerful HTTP server (https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy). We've used Typescript, Node (backend), React (frontend) and MongoDB for the database. It's a beta, but you can install super easily with Docker Compose: https://docs.meli.sh/get-started/installation https://docs.meli.sh/get-started/installation Check us out at https://github.com/getmeli/meli https://github.com/getmeli/meli ! Looking forward for your feedback :)
- gtirloni 6y ago
  Nice project! It would be nice if there were some issues that volunteers can pick up to work on. What's the best way to reach the team to discuss this? I'd like to contribute.
  - gempain 6y ago
    Hi there ! So sorry for the delay ! You can reach us at info@charlie-bravo.be ! Thanks so much for offering your help, I'll add some issues so people can pick them up and help.
- avinassh 6y ago
  Hey, great project! However, it is not really open source [0]. Do you mind updating your message and also on Github's README? The correct term would be 'source available' [0] - https://github.com/getmeli/meli/blob/79e20c00ba/LICENSE https://github.com/getmeli/meli/blob/79e20c00ba/LICENSE
- lloydatkinson 6y ago
  Looks great! How does it handle DNS? One of the things I like Netlify is not having to deal with the DNS headache. Add some magic strings to the DNS record and Netlify handles the rest.
  - gempain 6y ago
    Right now, you have to configure it manually, but we plan to automate this process for you in the future :) It's on the roadmap !
FanaHOVA 6y ago
This is interesting; I use Netlify for a Gatsby/Contentful website, as well as for a Netlify CMS one. I don't pay for any of it, so it's hard find a reason to move away. What are some of the problems you've seen people have with Netlify? Other than not being in control of the infrastructure of course.
- WA 6y ago
  If you don’t pay, it’s rather slow. A lot slower than my static pages on a VPS I rent.
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    > If you don’t pay, it’s rather slow. I have several free sites on Netlify and none of them seem slow at all - all three sites load in under 450ms on Chrome. How much faster are your sites loading? Is it a shared VPS or dedicated? Just curious how you categorize "rather slow" is all.
    - swyx 6y ago
      its also location dependent. the cdn for the free tier is different (less PoPs) than the cdn for the enterprise tier.
    - WA 6y ago
      > I have several free sites on Netlify and none of them seem slow at all - all three sites load in under 450ms on Chrome. Does this also measure the time to connect to the server? Not sure if Chrome is perfectly correct. I used https://tools.pingdom.com https://tools.pingdom.com I'm German. My free Netlify sites load twice as slow from Germany than from the US. US: 1.2s, Germany ~2.5s (and I thought Netlify has servers all around the world?!) But still, 1.2s is very slow imho. My website on a dedicated VPS, hosted in Germany, loads in 1.2s from the US and 200ms from Germany. The connection time being the slowest part of all. All websites are static and rather small. Maybe it's unfair to compare the free Netlify server to a paid dedicated VPS, but since this thread is about "self-hosting" vs "using Netlify", I just pointed out that Netlify is slower in my case.
altdatathrow 6y ago
Is this an upgrade from my current platform to deploy static sites, FTP?
- city41 6y ago
  Depends on what your needs are. For example if you are working on a team, Vercel* automatically deploying feature branches is extremely useful. Pushing a new blog post to your personal site? FTP is probably fine. *Can't speak to Meli as I've never used it.
- mrkurt 6y ago
  You're comparing a protocol to a set of automation tools. It may or may not be an upgrade. If you want something to handle builds, SSL, routing rules, etc ... then yes.
- echelon 6y ago
  git push = automated build and test (eg. Typescript codebases), deploy, SSL cert setup, CDN asset hosting It's effortless. Like how it looks locally? Git commit, git push. Done.
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    Not sure how many times I was on the phone with a client who wanted a few quick updates. I just edited the repo on github, checked it in and BOOM! Told the client the changes were live while we were still on the phone. That kind of ease of use does wonders for your customer service numbers.
jrururufuf666 6y ago
its 2020 and the hottest topic is static site generators. geocities ftp 1998
Possiblyheroin 6y ago
This is awesome - will definitely need to try it out on a side project. At first glance, seems to do something similar to Caprover.
phreack 6y ago
Just FYI in case you care about this sort of stuff, there's a major eBay-like company in South America called MercadoLibre, that is commonly referred to as MeLi or simply Meli as well, and that also has the $MELI stock ticker. It's not a big deal at all but thought you'd like to know about it as it may impact organic discovery or cause a bit of confusion down the line.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Fun fact: eBay used to be a 20% owner of MeLi.
  - pier25 6y ago
    It doesn't anymore?
    - jedberg 6y ago
      They divested in 2014.
- curben 6y ago
  This project's logo reminds me of Metricon [1], an Australian construction company. https://metricon.azureedge.net/Metricon/media/metricon/about-us/media/Metricon_logo_REV_blue-background_282-Social-Media-Twittera.jpg https://metricon.azureedge.net/Metricon/media/metricon/about...
jedahan 6y ago
Thought this was about the mail client https://meli.delivery/ https://meli.delivery/
monadic3 6y ago
You might describe the product directly for those who don't know what netlify is (seems like some kind of combination of a static file server and rsync aimed at enterprise). It makes me a little concerned that there are so many features.
- swyx 6y ago
  also CI/CD + CDN + serverless functions + identity + forms...
dxdm 6y ago
Does this have anything to do with meli, the in-terminal mail client? https://meli.delivery/ https://meli.delivery/
- qwerty456127 6y ago
  What a crazy look.
- gempain 6y ago
  Not at all. Meli means "ship" in Swahili. This is why we chose it.
yatsyk 6y ago
I've not found in docs anything related to static site configuration files (like netlify.toml or vercel.yml in hosted services). How to configure particular site?
debt 6y ago
Genuinely curious, can someone clarify how these types of platforms(Netlify etc) are any different from something like an S3 bucket? You can host a static website via an S3 bucket. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/WebsiteHosting.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/WebsiteHosti...
- cloogshicer 6y ago
  That's how I used to host my static sites but then I switched to Netlify because the UX for me as developer was just so much nicer. Maybe there's a way to also setup git sync with S3 buckets, but with netlify this is the default. And it's just so comfy to deploy with every git push. Also using any of the other netlify add-ons (forms, cloud functions) is super quick and simple. Something that I (admittedly an ops noob) can't say about AWS.
- edaemon 6y ago
  They offer features that you'd have to build yourself with S3, e.g.: - HTTPS with automatic certificate provisioning - CDN - CI/CD integration - Add-on features like CMS, identity management, functions, etc. They also tend to offer those things for free, within certain usage limits. If you just need a plain HTTP site with no frills S3 is just fine.
sneak 6y ago
I do something just like this but using CapRover self-hosted PaaS (receives webhooks from git and redeploys automatically) and a two stage Dockerfile: one for my build (jekyll) and another that's just FROM nginx that copies the _site directory to /var/html or wherever nginx serves statics from by default. Works a charm. Glad to see more work in the space.
- coltonfischer 6y ago
  I have been wanting to run a Jekyll site on my CapRover deployment, but wasn’t sure the best way to set that up. Do you have a repo that you can point me to to see how you have it setup?
  - sneak 6y ago
    https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/ https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/ https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/src/branch/master/Dockerfile https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/src/branch/master/Doc... Feel free to drop me a line if you have more questions, my email address is in my profile.
crazypython 6y ago
What about CDN to reduce latency and load time?
- austinpena 6y ago
  Why would this solve that problem? Why not just put cloudflare in front of it and have a cache everything rule?
  - gempain 6y ago
    Yup, that's what I was going to say. Separation of concerns is the key here. There's no way in a billion years we could do a better job at this than Cloudflare.
charsi 6y ago
I've used https://surge.sh/ https://surge.sh/ in the past. Which also doesn't have a self host option. So this looks interesting. Thanks.
- gempain 6y ago
  Thanks for the kind words :)

133 points by gempain 6y ago

Hi there ! We used to host our sites on Netlify, but our eyes fill with glitter when we hear open source and self-hosted. So, we built Meli, which essentially is a Netlify alternative that lets you deploy static sites and frontend applications with ease, featuring per-branch deployments, web/slack/mattermost/email hooks, an API, and a way to manage organizations, teams and sites easily. We built Meli on top of Caddy, a very powerful HTTP server (https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy). We've used Typescript, Node (backend), React (frontend) and MongoDB for the database. It's a beta, but you can install super easily with Docker Compose: https://docs.meli.sh/get-started/installation https://docs.meli.sh/get-started/installation Check us out at https://github.com/getmeli/meli https://github.com/getmeli/meli ! Looking forward for your feedback :)

gtirloni 6y ago
Nice project! It would be nice if there were some issues that volunteers can pick up to work on. What's the best way to reach the team to discuss this? I'd like to contribute.
- gempain 6y ago
  Hi there ! So sorry for the delay ! You can reach us at info@charlie-bravo.be ! Thanks so much for offering your help, I'll add some issues so people can pick them up and help.
avinassh 6y ago
Hey, great project! However, it is not really open source [0]. Do you mind updating your message and also on Github's README? The correct term would be 'source available' [0] - https://github.com/getmeli/meli/blob/79e20c00ba/LICENSE https://github.com/getmeli/meli/blob/79e20c00ba/LICENSE
lloydatkinson 6y ago
Looks great! How does it handle DNS? One of the things I like Netlify is not having to deal with the DNS headache. Add some magic strings to the DNS record and Netlify handles the rest.
- gempain 6y ago
  Right now, you have to configure it manually, but we plan to automate this process for you in the future :) It's on the roadmap !

FanaHOVA 6y ago

This is interesting; I use Netlify for a Gatsby/Contentful website, as well as for a Netlify CMS one. I don't pay for any of it, so it's hard find a reason to move away. What are some of the problems you've seen people have with Netlify? Other than not being in control of the infrastructure of course.

WA 6y ago
If you don’t pay, it’s rather slow. A lot slower than my static pages on a VPS I rent.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  > If you don’t pay, it’s rather slow. I have several free sites on Netlify and none of them seem slow at all - all three sites load in under 450ms on Chrome. How much faster are your sites loading? Is it a shared VPS or dedicated? Just curious how you categorize "rather slow" is all.
  - swyx 6y ago
    its also location dependent. the cdn for the free tier is different (less PoPs) than the cdn for the enterprise tier.
  - WA 6y ago
    > I have several free sites on Netlify and none of them seem slow at all - all three sites load in under 450ms on Chrome. Does this also measure the time to connect to the server? Not sure if Chrome is perfectly correct. I used https://tools.pingdom.com https://tools.pingdom.com I'm German. My free Netlify sites load twice as slow from Germany than from the US. US: 1.2s, Germany ~2.5s (and I thought Netlify has servers all around the world?!) But still, 1.2s is very slow imho. My website on a dedicated VPS, hosted in Germany, loads in 1.2s from the US and 200ms from Germany. The connection time being the slowest part of all. All websites are static and rather small. Maybe it's unfair to compare the free Netlify server to a paid dedicated VPS, but since this thread is about "self-hosting" vs "using Netlify", I just pointed out that Netlify is slower in my case.

altdatathrow 6y ago

Is this an upgrade from my current platform to deploy static sites, FTP?

city41 6y ago
Depends on what your needs are. For example if you are working on a team, Vercel* automatically deploying feature branches is extremely useful. Pushing a new blog post to your personal site? FTP is probably fine. *Can't speak to Meli as I've never used it.
mrkurt 6y ago
You're comparing a protocol to a set of automation tools. It may or may not be an upgrade. If you want something to handle builds, SSL, routing rules, etc ... then yes.
echelon 6y ago
git push = automated build and test (eg. Typescript codebases), deploy, SSL cert setup, CDN asset hosting It's effortless. Like how it looks locally? Git commit, git push. Done.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  Not sure how many times I was on the phone with a client who wanted a few quick updates. I just edited the repo on github, checked it in and BOOM! Told the client the changes were live while we were still on the phone. That kind of ease of use does wonders for your customer service numbers.

jrururufuf666 6y ago

its 2020 and the hottest topic is static site generators. geocities ftp 1998

Possiblyheroin 6y ago

This is awesome - will definitely need to try it out on a side project. At first glance, seems to do something similar to Caprover.

phreack 6y ago

Just FYI in case you care about this sort of stuff, there's a major eBay-like company in South America called MercadoLibre, that is commonly referred to as MeLi or simply Meli as well, and that also has the $MELI stock ticker. It's not a big deal at all but thought you'd like to know about it as it may impact organic discovery or cause a bit of confusion down the line.

jedberg 6y ago
Fun fact: eBay used to be a 20% owner of MeLi.
- pier25 6y ago
  It doesn't anymore?
  - jedberg 6y ago
    They divested in 2014.
curben 6y ago
This project's logo reminds me of Metricon [1], an Australian construction company. https://metricon.azureedge.net/Metricon/media/metricon/about-us/media/Metricon_logo_REV_blue-background_282-Social-Media-Twittera.jpg https://metricon.azureedge.net/Metricon/media/metricon/about...

jedahan 6y ago

Thought this was about the mail client https://meli.delivery/ https://meli.delivery/

monadic3 6y ago

You might describe the product directly for those who don't know what netlify is (seems like some kind of combination of a static file server and rsync aimed at enterprise). It makes me a little concerned that there are so many features.

swyx 6y ago
also CI/CD + CDN + serverless functions + identity + forms...

dxdm 6y ago

Does this have anything to do with meli, the in-terminal mail client? https://meli.delivery/ https://meli.delivery/

qwerty456127 6y ago
What a crazy look.
gempain 6y ago
Not at all. Meli means "ship" in Swahili. This is why we chose it.

yatsyk 6y ago

I've not found in docs anything related to static site configuration files (like netlify.toml or vercel.yml in hosted services). How to configure particular site?

debt 6y ago

Genuinely curious, can someone clarify how these types of platforms(Netlify etc) are any different from something like an S3 bucket? You can host a static website via an S3 bucket. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/WebsiteHosting.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/WebsiteHosti...

cloogshicer 6y ago
That's how I used to host my static sites but then I switched to Netlify because the UX for me as developer was just so much nicer. Maybe there's a way to also setup git sync with S3 buckets, but with netlify this is the default. And it's just so comfy to deploy with every git push. Also using any of the other netlify add-ons (forms, cloud functions) is super quick and simple. Something that I (admittedly an ops noob) can't say about AWS.
edaemon 6y ago
They offer features that you'd have to build yourself with S3, e.g.: - HTTPS with automatic certificate provisioning - CDN - CI/CD integration - Add-on features like CMS, identity management, functions, etc. They also tend to offer those things for free, within certain usage limits. If you just need a plain HTTP site with no frills S3 is just fine.

sneak 6y ago

I do something just like this but using CapRover self-hosted PaaS (receives webhooks from git and redeploys automatically) and a two stage Dockerfile: one for my build (jekyll) and another that's just FROM nginx that copies the _site directory to /var/html or wherever nginx serves statics from by default. Works a charm. Glad to see more work in the space.

coltonfischer 6y ago
I have been wanting to run a Jekyll site on my CapRover deployment, but wasn’t sure the best way to set that up. Do you have a repo that you can point me to to see how you have it setup?
- sneak 6y ago
  https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/ https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/ https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/src/branch/master/Dockerfile https://git.eeqj.de/sneak/synshop.info/src/branch/master/Doc... Feel free to drop me a line if you have more questions, my email address is in my profile.

crazypython 6y ago

What about CDN to reduce latency and load time?

austinpena 6y ago
Why would this solve that problem? Why not just put cloudflare in front of it and have a cache everything rule?
- gempain 6y ago
  Yup, that's what I was going to say. Separation of concerns is the key here. There's no way in a billion years we could do a better job at this than Cloudflare.

charsi 6y ago

I've used https://surge.sh/ https://surge.sh/ in the past. Which also doesn't have a self host option. So this looks interesting. Thanks.

gempain 6y ago
Thanks for the kind words :)