6 ms·

The rise of self-hosted apps

73 points by chromakode 4y ago

CharlesW 4y ago
> However, let’s be real: the biggest thing holding self-hosted apps back is they’re still too difficult to install. And run reliably. And secure. And admin/maintain.
- yadoomerta 4y ago
  sandstorm https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ 's dream is to make this as easy as installing a phone app. It's still rough around the edges but I think the model is completely right and the security it offers is excellent.
- unstatusthequo 4y ago
  Nextcloud AIO has been great so far in my experience. Master container manages of sub containers. Borg backups included. Easy certs. Impressed with what they’ve done on that offering.
blkhp19 4y ago
> A common critique is that web apps yield clunky user experiences. This will be debated endlessly in developer circles, but native feeling UI is not necessary for mass adoption; the bar is “good enough”. Classic - love when engineers settle for "good enough." A good reminder that the average person has bad taste and takes very little pride in the end-user-UX.
Havoc 4y ago
The frontend is arguably the one part of selfhosting that is solved. Most people can use web interfaces. Everything else, not so much. Stray even an inch off the technical happy path and it's rabbit holes and foot guns as far as the eye can see. CasaOS seems to be getting closer to concealing some of it (essentially an OS that is a giant app store for all the usual selfhosting suspects).
- fleg 4y ago
  YunoHost is another solution to that. I've been using it for over a year now and it's really nice
brundolf 4y ago
This sort of hand-waves the core issue we've always had, which is that it's too error-prone and annoying to set up self-hosting. That, and that alone, is why it's still only done by enthusiasts, no matter how much technologists would like it to be otherwise. Until it's as easy (and cheap!) to self-host as it is to sign up for an account, self-hosting will remain a niche.
- swatcoder 4y ago
  For the last 30 years, there've consistently been companies looking to break into home computing appliances. With the maturity of container deployments, the ubiquity of low-power/high-performance SoC ARM platforms, the increasing consumer concern over data privacy, and the ongoing spread of fiber, the cake is just about fully baked. Whether it's a big existing company or some startup, somebody will break open the market with a little puck that you plug into the wall and that comes preconfigured with something NextCloud-like and self-maintaining. Then the competition starts, a few generations of innovation happen, and voila.
  - brundolf 4y ago
    That puck still costs money, where many existing services are free It won't be directly accessible over the internet without either router configuration changes, or some kind of cloud service to phone home to If it were addressable over the internet- would the customer have to set up a custom domain? Or memorize an IP address? Or rely on a cloud service to redirect requests through? And then on top of all that, it'll go offline if the customer's home power or internet goes out There's some more gap to be closed, sure, and you already don't have to be a programmer to set that kind of thing up. But I don't see this kind of thing ever traversing beyond the realm of enthusiasts
    - api 4y ago
      Services that are free invade your privacy, manipulate you with targeted ads, or use addiction to get you to spend money elsewhere.
EntrePrescott 4y ago
While I agree that self-hosted PWA will have _some_ success (especially for easier use cases) and that cloud services are worse for the user than a local app in use cases suitable for the latter… it seems like a big load of wishful thinking to believe that PWA would replace cloud services in any significant way: The truth is that we already had and have local apps that worked fine for the user (that is: native local apps, including cross-platform) and that despite that, cloud services gained terrain on them enormously. The main reason being that cloud services offer enormous benefits to the selling/operating company: the revenue is more calculable and less prone to the piracy issues of local software. The proportion of users who have enough awareness to recognize the problems of cloud services are a minority. And the only thing that self-hosted PWAs really add compared to the classic native local apps, compared to which they have a lot of disadvantages, is that their development has a somewhat lower learning curve compared to cross-platform native software development (though the latter isn't that hard either and the reasons why many native apps were not cross-platform have nothing to do with technical problems in most cases). As for the way the article pits "communities" against "big tech": I see that more as a matter of open source and open data communities… for which local PWAs really aren't that much of a big game changer as the article imagines.
api 4y ago
I run some of these but I don’t think it will take off in the mainstream unless we can get the process of setup and administration out of the 1970s. It needs to be like installing apps on a phone with seamless auto update. Running Proxmox or Docker or even one of those self hosting oriented distributions is too complex for most people to bother with. As soon as you say “install this distribution on your server” you have lost most people. It’s not just lack of technical skill. Even most people who are perfectly able just don’t have time to hassle with it.
- anderspitman 4y ago
  Yep. Shouldn't be any more difficult or less secure than running an app on your phone. I'm working on this with my main side project. Curious to see if there's actually a market for it, providing software to make it seamless and selling tunneling bandwidth.
  - yadoomerta 4y ago
    You've probably already seen it, but if not, checkout https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ It didn't do too well commercially, but might have been ahead of it's time
    - api 4y ago
      I looked at it and it mandated login with a big cloud provider like Google, which almost completely defeats the purpose by giving them access.
      - kentonv 4y ago
        It sounds like you looked at a very early prototype circa 2014? Sandstorm has supported login via email, LDAP, and SAML for a long time.
        yadoomerta 4y ago
        Thank you so much for sandstorm btw! It's a really incredible piece of software

73 points by chromakode 4y ago

> However, let’s be real: the biggest thing holding self-hosted apps back is they’re still too difficult to install. And run reliably. And secure. And admin/maintain.

yadoomerta 4y ago
sandstorm https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ 's dream is to make this as easy as installing a phone app. It's still rough around the edges but I think the model is completely right and the security it offers is excellent.
unstatusthequo 4y ago
Nextcloud AIO has been great so far in my experience. Master container manages of sub containers. Borg backups included. Easy certs. Impressed with what they’ve done on that offering.

blkhp19 4y ago

> A common critique is that web apps yield clunky user experiences. This will be debated endlessly in developer circles, but native feeling UI is not necessary for mass adoption; the bar is “good enough”. Classic - love when engineers settle for "good enough." A good reminder that the average person has bad taste and takes very little pride in the end-user-UX.

Havoc 4y ago

The frontend is arguably the one part of selfhosting that is solved. Most people can use web interfaces. Everything else, not so much. Stray even an inch off the technical happy path and it's rabbit holes and foot guns as far as the eye can see. CasaOS seems to be getting closer to concealing some of it (essentially an OS that is a giant app store for all the usual selfhosting suspects).

fleg 4y ago
YunoHost is another solution to that. I've been using it for over a year now and it's really nice

brundolf 4y ago

This sort of hand-waves the core issue we've always had, which is that it's too error-prone and annoying to set up self-hosting. That, and that alone, is why it's still only done by enthusiasts, no matter how much technologists would like it to be otherwise. Until it's as easy (and cheap!) to self-host as it is to sign up for an account, self-hosting will remain a niche.

swatcoder 4y ago
For the last 30 years, there've consistently been companies looking to break into home computing appliances. With the maturity of container deployments, the ubiquity of low-power/high-performance SoC ARM platforms, the increasing consumer concern over data privacy, and the ongoing spread of fiber, the cake is just about fully baked. Whether it's a big existing company or some startup, somebody will break open the market with a little puck that you plug into the wall and that comes preconfigured with something NextCloud-like and self-maintaining. Then the competition starts, a few generations of innovation happen, and voila.
- brundolf 4y ago
  That puck still costs money, where many existing services are free It won't be directly accessible over the internet without either router configuration changes, or some kind of cloud service to phone home to If it were addressable over the internet- would the customer have to set up a custom domain? Or memorize an IP address? Or rely on a cloud service to redirect requests through? And then on top of all that, it'll go offline if the customer's home power or internet goes out There's some more gap to be closed, sure, and you already don't have to be a programmer to set that kind of thing up. But I don't see this kind of thing ever traversing beyond the realm of enthusiasts
  - api 4y ago
    Services that are free invade your privacy, manipulate you with targeted ads, or use addiction to get you to spend money elsewhere.

EntrePrescott 4y ago

While I agree that self-hosted PWA will have _some_ success (especially for easier use cases) and that cloud services are worse for the user than a local app in use cases suitable for the latter… it seems like a big load of wishful thinking to believe that PWA would replace cloud services in any significant way: The truth is that we already had and have local apps that worked fine for the user (that is: native local apps, including cross-platform) and that despite that, cloud services gained terrain on them enormously. The main reason being that cloud services offer enormous benefits to the selling/operating company: the revenue is more calculable and less prone to the piracy issues of local software. The proportion of users who have enough awareness to recognize the problems of cloud services are a minority. And the only thing that self-hosted PWAs really add compared to the classic native local apps, compared to which they have a lot of disadvantages, is that their development has a somewhat lower learning curve compared to cross-platform native software development (though the latter isn't that hard either and the reasons why many native apps were not cross-platform have nothing to do with technical problems in most cases). As for the way the article pits "communities" against "big tech": I see that more as a matter of open source and open data communities… for which local PWAs really aren't that much of a big game changer as the article imagines.

api 4y ago

I run some of these but I don’t think it will take off in the mainstream unless we can get the process of setup and administration out of the 1970s. It needs to be like installing apps on a phone with seamless auto update. Running Proxmox or Docker or even one of those self hosting oriented distributions is too complex for most people to bother with. As soon as you say “install this distribution on your server” you have lost most people. It’s not just lack of technical skill. Even most people who are perfectly able just don’t have time to hassle with it.

anderspitman 4y ago
Yep. Shouldn't be any more difficult or less secure than running an app on your phone. I'm working on this with my main side project. Curious to see if there's actually a market for it, providing software to make it seamless and selling tunneling bandwidth.
- yadoomerta 4y ago
  You've probably already seen it, but if not, checkout https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ It didn't do too well commercially, but might have been ahead of it's time
  - api 4y ago
    I looked at it and it mandated login with a big cloud provider like Google, which almost completely defeats the purpose by giving them access.
    - kentonv 4y ago
      It sounds like you looked at a very early prototype circa 2014? Sandstorm has supported login via email, LDAP, and SAML for a long time.
      - yadoomerta 4y ago
        Thank you so much for sandstorm btw! It's a really incredible piece of software