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I've noticed this as well and I really think there's a market for a simple self-hosted cloud server. Many people aren't comfortable with managing a server and a

I've noticed this as well and I really think there's a market for a simple self-hosted cloud server. Many people aren't comfortable with managing a server and all the tech aspects that come with it. What I envision is a bring-your-own server solution that provides recommended specs (or buy from the company as a funding source) and similar to the app store you can download containerized app, let's say from docker, with 0 technical knowledge. Just a nice UI and all the functionality automated so the user doesn't have to do anything but click a button and maybe a settings page for really basic stuff. There can be an open library that just links to docker hub or whatever other platform as well as a curated library. It should all be encrypted and secure by default. It should all serve on localhost with an option screen to specify UI or hookup your own domain to access remotely. Again, UX is key here to abstract everything away from the user and make it stupid simple to use. From what I've seen, people would love to host their own services but either don't have the technical know-how or don't want to deal with managing their own server or AWS or whatever other droplet solution.

popinman322 6y ago
Isn't this the PaaS model?
- hanniabu 6y ago
  Sort of but not really. On thinking about it some more for the average user, you'd really want to sell a ready-to-go unit so they don't even have to deal with the initial computer setup and platform download/install because I know that's still way more than a lot of people would want to do or feel comfortable doing. They want something that they own, with good privacy, that just works, and is maintenance free. I imagine this company selling a visually appealing unit similar to how xbox and playstation aim to be more of an elegant accent piece than a clunky electronic box. This way when the user gets the product they just open, plug it in, create an account and password, wait for it to initialize, and then you're good to go and can start immediately downloading apps. Then just download an accompanying app on your phone/desktop/computer and connect to your own personal cloud where you own all your software and data. Could even sell upgradeable units for a premium that have an easy access panel to just swap or plug in additional RAM or SSD modules.
  - loulouxiv 6y ago
    Such a system would be considerably preferable over cloud for things like backup of your phone files and photos (bandwidth), direct sharing of voluminous files (bandwith, no need to wait for upload to complete), videoconferencing (latency)
  - ta988 6y ago
    Sounds a bit like what synology is offering. The only problem is maintenance of that. You now have millions of boxes that will fail randomly for various reasons (bug, bit flipping, hardware error). And now you have a furious user that can't restore from a broken backup and doesnt know how to repair (if even possible)...
mappu 6y ago
You may be interested in https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/
- oezi 6y ago
  Is Baserow on Sandstorm.io already? That would be awesome.
crucialfelix 6y ago
https://cloud.google.com/marketplace https://cloud.google.com/marketplace Google cloud marketplace allows you to launch all kinds of open source solutions with a click. This includes the setup for databases. Though it's not a place that a non technical user would think to go, and I expect it's not really as simple as it promises. The devil is always in the details.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  > Though it's not a place that a non technical user would think to go, and I expect it's not really as simple as it promises. Exactly and you also don't own the data or have any expectation of privacy.

popinman322 6y ago

Isn't this the PaaS model?

hanniabu 6y ago
Sort of but not really. On thinking about it some more for the average user, you'd really want to sell a ready-to-go unit so they don't even have to deal with the initial computer setup and platform download/install because I know that's still way more than a lot of people would want to do or feel comfortable doing. They want something that they own, with good privacy, that just works, and is maintenance free. I imagine this company selling a visually appealing unit similar to how xbox and playstation aim to be more of an elegant accent piece than a clunky electronic box. This way when the user gets the product they just open, plug it in, create an account and password, wait for it to initialize, and then you're good to go and can start immediately downloading apps. Then just download an accompanying app on your phone/desktop/computer and connect to your own personal cloud where you own all your software and data. Could even sell upgradeable units for a premium that have an easy access panel to just swap or plug in additional RAM or SSD modules.
- loulouxiv 6y ago
  Such a system would be considerably preferable over cloud for things like backup of your phone files and photos (bandwidth), direct sharing of voluminous files (bandwith, no need to wait for upload to complete), videoconferencing (latency)
- ta988 6y ago
  Sounds a bit like what synology is offering. The only problem is maintenance of that. You now have millions of boxes that will fail randomly for various reasons (bug, bit flipping, hardware error). And now you have a furious user that can't restore from a broken backup and doesnt know how to repair (if even possible)...

mappu 6y ago

You may be interested in https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/

oezi 6y ago
Is Baserow on Sandstorm.io already? That would be awesome.

crucialfelix 6y ago

https://cloud.google.com/marketplace https://cloud.google.com/marketplace Google cloud marketplace allows you to launch all kinds of open source solutions with a click. This includes the setup for databases. Though it's not a place that a non technical user would think to go, and I expect it's not really as simple as it promises. The devil is always in the details.

hanniabu 6y ago
> Though it's not a place that a non technical user would think to go, and I expect it's not really as simple as it promises. Exactly and you also don't own the data or have any expectation of privacy.