25 ms·

Pagoda goes in private beta - Heroku for PHP

47 points by ranza 15y ago

milano 15y ago
Site alone makes me wanna give them a try :)
- shaunxcode 15y ago
  right? I was about to post some snarky comment about "php is the heroku for php" but then I went through their site and was actually impressed. It would be rad if they had a free tier which turned into a "paid" account if it hit a certain threshold.
  - tortilla 15y ago
    They do have a free tier: http://www.pagodabox.com/pricing http://www.pagodabox.com/pricing
    - shaunxcode 15y ago
      hah I totally misunderstood that. Once you log into the dashboard it's really clear because you see the slider w/ $per 30 days. It would be cool to stick that on the pricing page directly. From what I can see per 30 days: 1 clone($0.00) .. 25 clones($864.00)
ghempton 15y ago
sounds a lot like https://www.phpfog.com/ https://www.phpfog.com/
- noodle 15y ago
  if we're naming competitors, here's another: http://cloudcontrol.com/ http://cloudcontrol.com/
  - andypants 15y ago
    And here's a big list: http://blog.huchunhao.com/current-and-upcoming-cloud-platforms http://blog.huchunhao.com/current-and-upcoming-cloud-platfor... Thread complete.
armandososa 15y ago
I like it how the screencast didn't use a terminal; not even once. This is very different from the other Heroku for x initiatives. That, bundled with their absolutely gorgeous design is a huge differentiator from the alternatives.
jinushaun 15y ago
The PHP Fog web designer could learn a few things from the Pagoda site. I found Pagoda much more informative and has better usability than Fog. The graphics and images on Pagoda aid the user in understanding how Pagoda works and why it's better than traditional hosting, instead of hitting you over the head with over-the-top beautiful graphics that ultimately don't say or mean much as on Fog. The typography also makes the copy easier to read. The video demo is very slick.
- blantonl 15y ago
  It's funny, I almost down-voted you thinking this was a sarcastic post since my first impression of Pagoda's homepage was "wtf?" - but, their site caught my attention and encouraged me to progress through the process to find out more. I'm not sure whether the designers of Pogoda's site are flat out geniuses or skating on thin ice.
epenn 15y ago
I like the idea of Pagoda pulling from the github repository, but what happens if github is for any reason inaccessible and you need to make an update to your site? Is there a backup method?
digitalnalogika 15y ago
Request invite if you're interested, I got it pretty quickly. Great design indeed.
sparkygoblue 15y ago
Pulling only from github seems very restrictive to me. So, basically if I want to put a private project on PagodaBox, I have to also purchase a github account.
- tonius36 15y ago
  What's wrong with a github account? Give them some love. Their private option is cheap. Over all once you start using github it's hard to go any other route anyway.
  - eropple 15y ago
    What's wrong with a github account? It doesn't support Mercurial. I use BitBucket, on which private repositories are free (and I don't have to use git, which is a plus). Supporting only github means I can't use it. Unfortunate, because their stuff looks cool.
    - defroost 15y ago
      > Supporting only github means I can't use it. Unfortunate, because their stuff looks cool. I'm sure if you really wanted to use Pagoda, you could use the http://hg-git.github.com/ http://hg-git.github.com/. Or you could just sign up for a free Github account (free seems to be a requirement for you, and these days with the state of the economy I can definitely relate. although no free and private as you mentioned) and learn git, which is a joy to use, and blazingly fast, which is nice for cloning large repos. Personally, I use Heroku and prefer Ruby to PHP so I don't feel compelled to try Pagoda, but I could appreciate the work that went into the site, and the backend. Impressive.
      - eropple 15y ago
        I am well familiar with git--I have been subjected to dealing with it on many unpleasant occasions. Git is as far from a joy to use as anything I can think of. A rather large number of scripts and other tools I've developed depend on hg out of convenience, and I have no interest in porting them to a tool that is not better for my use case where it is superior and considerably worse where it is inferior. As far as I'm concerned, git is a piece of software good in its niche--a niche that happens to be kernel development, not web-development-because-some-Ruby-people-thought-it-was-trendy--made popular via cargo-culting and it offers me nothing that Mercurial doesn't. Well, I should say that it offers nothing aside from needless complexity, substandard tools on Windows, and and poor user interface design. If Pagoda (or anyone else, for that matter) is going to perpetuate the cargo cult, I am going to decline to use it. I can afford a Github subscription. It's not that much money. It's just completely worthless to me.
mgkimsal 15y ago
From the video: "Select which framework your using" "your" should be "you're"
apl 15y ago
Their website is ridiculously well designed -- possibly on par with Heroku. Doesn't say much about their solutions and infrastructure, but it does signal great care.
apinstein 15y ago
Yay! More PHP PaaS services with a real cloud architecture. Very nice. Please add PostgreSQL and I'll start using it!
dashr 15y ago
PHPCloud isn't built in PHP. Anyone know if Pagoda is built in PHP? I'm more partial to supporting a php PAAS that is intimately familiar (on a day to day operational basis) with my language.
- twasp 15y ago
  Same group that runs this Magento (PHP) extension shop: http://www.tinybrick.com/ http://www.tinybrick.com/ Also recalled a tweet awhile back, here it is: http://twitter.com/#!/PagodaBox/status/60133469107388416 http://twitter.com/#!/PagodaBox/status/60133469107388416
leftnode 15y ago
Wow, this is seriously awesome. Gorgeous design and the admin panel is incredibly easy to use.
simonhamp 15y ago
I have 10 invites...
blantonl 15y ago
Does anyone know who their hosting provider(s) are? I'm curious to know if they rolled their own infrastructure or if they are cloud based. Also, does anyone know about their funding and the team? On the surface it looks promising, but I'd like to hear more about the team behind the effort and further details on the back-end behind the black box.
- lfittl 15y ago
  Judging from WHOIS they seem use Softlayer.
whatusername 15y ago
This is gorgeous: http://www.pagodabox.com/architecture http://www.pagodabox.com/architecture Almost making me want to write PHP
c00p3r 15y ago
Is there any shortage of cheap crappy PHP hostings?

47 points by ranza 15y ago

milano 15y ago

Site alone makes me wanna give them a try :)

shaunxcode 15y ago
right? I was about to post some snarky comment about "php is the heroku for php" but then I went through their site and was actually impressed. It would be rad if they had a free tier which turned into a "paid" account if it hit a certain threshold.
- tortilla 15y ago
  They do have a free tier: http://www.pagodabox.com/pricing http://www.pagodabox.com/pricing
  - shaunxcode 15y ago
    hah I totally misunderstood that. Once you log into the dashboard it's really clear because you see the slider w/ $per 30 days. It would be cool to stick that on the pricing page directly. From what I can see per 30 days: 1 clone($0.00) .. 25 clones($864.00)

ghempton 15y ago

sounds a lot like https://www.phpfog.com/ https://www.phpfog.com/

noodle 15y ago
if we're naming competitors, here's another: http://cloudcontrol.com/ http://cloudcontrol.com/
- andypants 15y ago
  And here's a big list: http://blog.huchunhao.com/current-and-upcoming-cloud-platforms http://blog.huchunhao.com/current-and-upcoming-cloud-platfor... Thread complete.

armandososa 15y ago

I like it how the screencast didn't use a terminal; not even once. This is very different from the other Heroku for x initiatives. That, bundled with their absolutely gorgeous design is a huge differentiator from the alternatives.

jinushaun 15y ago

The PHP Fog web designer could learn a few things from the Pagoda site. I found Pagoda much more informative and has better usability than Fog. The graphics and images on Pagoda aid the user in understanding how Pagoda works and why it's better than traditional hosting, instead of hitting you over the head with over-the-top beautiful graphics that ultimately don't say or mean much as on Fog. The typography also makes the copy easier to read. The video demo is very slick.

blantonl 15y ago
It's funny, I almost down-voted you thinking this was a sarcastic post since my first impression of Pagoda's homepage was "wtf?" - but, their site caught my attention and encouraged me to progress through the process to find out more. I'm not sure whether the designers of Pogoda's site are flat out geniuses or skating on thin ice.

epenn 15y ago

I like the idea of Pagoda pulling from the github repository, but what happens if github is for any reason inaccessible and you need to make an update to your site? Is there a backup method?

digitalnalogika 15y ago

Request invite if you're interested, I got it pretty quickly. Great design indeed.

sparkygoblue 15y ago

Pulling only from github seems very restrictive to me. So, basically if I want to put a private project on PagodaBox, I have to also purchase a github account.

tonius36 15y ago
What's wrong with a github account? Give them some love. Their private option is cheap. Over all once you start using github it's hard to go any other route anyway.
- eropple 15y ago
  What's wrong with a github account? It doesn't support Mercurial. I use BitBucket, on which private repositories are free (and I don't have to use git, which is a plus). Supporting only github means I can't use it. Unfortunate, because their stuff looks cool.
  - defroost 15y ago
    > Supporting only github means I can't use it. Unfortunate, because their stuff looks cool. I'm sure if you really wanted to use Pagoda, you could use the http://hg-git.github.com/ http://hg-git.github.com/. Or you could just sign up for a free Github account (free seems to be a requirement for you, and these days with the state of the economy I can definitely relate. although no free and private as you mentioned) and learn git, which is a joy to use, and blazingly fast, which is nice for cloning large repos. Personally, I use Heroku and prefer Ruby to PHP so I don't feel compelled to try Pagoda, but I could appreciate the work that went into the site, and the backend. Impressive.
    - eropple 15y ago
      I am well familiar with git--I have been subjected to dealing with it on many unpleasant occasions. Git is as far from a joy to use as anything I can think of. A rather large number of scripts and other tools I've developed depend on hg out of convenience, and I have no interest in porting them to a tool that is not better for my use case where it is superior and considerably worse where it is inferior. As far as I'm concerned, git is a piece of software good in its niche--a niche that happens to be kernel development, not web-development-because-some-Ruby-people-thought-it-was-trendy--made popular via cargo-culting and it offers me nothing that Mercurial doesn't. Well, I should say that it offers nothing aside from needless complexity, substandard tools on Windows, and and poor user interface design. If Pagoda (or anyone else, for that matter) is going to perpetuate the cargo cult, I am going to decline to use it. I can afford a Github subscription. It's not that much money. It's just completely worthless to me.

mgkimsal 15y ago

From the video: "Select which framework your using" "your" should be "you're"

apl 15y ago

Their website is ridiculously well designed -- possibly on par with Heroku. Doesn't say much about their solutions and infrastructure, but it does signal great care.

apinstein 15y ago

Yay! More PHP PaaS services with a real cloud architecture. Very nice. Please add PostgreSQL and I'll start using it!

dashr 15y ago

PHPCloud isn't built in PHP. Anyone know if Pagoda is built in PHP? I'm more partial to supporting a php PAAS that is intimately familiar (on a day to day operational basis) with my language.

twasp 15y ago
Same group that runs this Magento (PHP) extension shop: http://www.tinybrick.com/ http://www.tinybrick.com/ Also recalled a tweet awhile back, here it is: http://twitter.com/#!/PagodaBox/status/60133469107388416 http://twitter.com/#!/PagodaBox/status/60133469107388416

leftnode 15y ago

Wow, this is seriously awesome. Gorgeous design and the admin panel is incredibly easy to use.

simonhamp 15y ago

I have 10 invites...

blantonl 15y ago

Does anyone know who their hosting provider(s) are? I'm curious to know if they rolled their own infrastructure or if they are cloud based. Also, does anyone know about their funding and the team? On the surface it looks promising, but I'd like to hear more about the team behind the effort and further details on the back-end behind the black box.

lfittl 15y ago
Judging from WHOIS they seem use Softlayer.

whatusername 15y ago

This is gorgeous: http://www.pagodabox.com/architecture http://www.pagodabox.com/architecture Almost making me want to write PHP

c00p3r 15y ago

Is there any shortage of cheap crappy PHP hostings?