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What do you all use for a modern web development machine. 16GB of ram is no longer enough, I will soon upgrade to a new MBA with 32GB, but I still fear that wo

What do you all use for a modern web development machine. 16GB of ram is no longer enough, I will soon upgrade to a new MBA with 32GB, but I still fear that won't be enough. I was looking at the latest framework and you can get it with 96GB of ram for $2k, that's $3600-$3800 for a mac and it's a much larger mac than I want. A quick scan of Dell and Lenovo non workstation class laptops didn't show any with more than 32GB. Memory used by various apps: docker VM take 8Gb for simple supabase images Firefox take 5-8GB BasedPyRight takes 2GB Nextjs server takes 2GB

devmor 1y ago
If you need an 8gb docker image as part of your local web development stack, that’s a toolchain problem.
- AlotOfReading 1y ago
  One of our vendors publishes a 70GB docker image as their SDK. It's awful.
  - devmor 1y ago
    That is horrendous. I'm assuming it contains some kind of giant dataset in its entirety?
    - AlotOfReading 1y ago
      No datasets. Most of the size is just apt packages and tools bundled into the layers. Around 5GB are "useful" things, and another 15GB are a couple of arguably justified tarballs (only one of which is needed).
      - devmor 1y ago
        That's even more infuriating. Just sheer incompetence wasting your valuable space and bandwidth.
mhitza 1y ago
The Thinkpad P15 workstation line of laptops support 128gb of memory. I've seen refurbished gen 1 at around 600 USD and 128gb of ram (has 4 slots) is another 250 USD on top. (Give or take, I'm converting from euros, and the US market doesn't VAT so it should be cheaper than that)
dale_huevo 1y ago
30 years ago we could play Doom with 4 MB of RAM. Web development has devolved to the point where now you need 32 GB to view a Chinese take-out menu.
acdha 1y ago
Firefox takes less than half a GB base plus your usage, so you might want to see which extensions are bloating it up.
ashwinsundar 1y ago
Uninstall Firefox and stop developing junk in Next.js or any other vendor-as-a-service frameworks Install htop/btop and be more conscious about what your machine is actually doing. Needing more than 32GB RAM to develop a website is absurd
- tcfhgj 1y ago
  Firefox is the only browser with manifest v2 support
Macha 1y ago
My firefox is currently on 450mb on RAM, putting it in third place behind KDE's file indexer and one of the currently running electron instances. If you use Linux, then you're not stuck pre-dedicating a big block of RAM to a VM to run docker in, you're just using whatever the container is using.
numpad0 1y ago
I've never got upvotes reciting this but won't stop doing: there's right amount of sluggishness that the majority wants, and both software bloat and debloat happens until it hits honey-like sublime-to-some lagging is achieved. Only software and technologies that are _buttery_ smooth, not ethanoly smooth, will survive, and nothing will ever solve the software sluggishness that frustrates some, which unfortunately include myself.
paddy_m 1y ago
FWIW I didn't choose the docker or nextjs stack. Sometimes you have clients or work at a job that makes tech stack choices you don't agree with.
v5v3 1y ago
Switch from docker to one of the other alternatives and wi be less ram probably.
Nextgrid 1y ago
Since you mention "Docker VM" I'm assuming you're using a Mac? If so my best advice is to not use Docker for day-to-day development; reverse-engineer the docker-compose.yml/etc and run what you'd run in containers locally. As a web developer I've been getting away with doing this for almost a decade now. It's a one-time cost to review what containers the app needs and then map that to a native world (install Postgres/etc via homebrew, adjust the env vars, etc). The only time I run Docker nowadays is when I actually need to work on the Dockerfile itself and need to test it locally.
yread 1y ago
Get a proper laptop where you can install sodimm memory and m2 ssds. A previous gen base model with decent screen Elitebook 8xx or Thinkpad T1x, 128gb ddr5 kit is 300€, 4tb ssd 200€ and you dont have to worry about upgrades. My 5yr old machine has 64gb/4tb, it was doable for a long time

devmor 1y ago

If you need an 8gb docker image as part of your local web development stack, that’s a toolchain problem.

AlotOfReading 1y ago
One of our vendors publishes a 70GB docker image as their SDK. It's awful.
- devmor 1y ago
  That is horrendous. I'm assuming it contains some kind of giant dataset in its entirety?
  - AlotOfReading 1y ago
    No datasets. Most of the size is just apt packages and tools bundled into the layers. Around 5GB are "useful" things, and another 15GB are a couple of arguably justified tarballs (only one of which is needed).
    - devmor 1y ago
      That's even more infuriating. Just sheer incompetence wasting your valuable space and bandwidth.

mhitza 1y ago

The Thinkpad P15 workstation line of laptops support 128gb of memory. I've seen refurbished gen 1 at around 600 USD and 128gb of ram (has 4 slots) is another 250 USD on top. (Give or take, I'm converting from euros, and the US market doesn't VAT so it should be cheaper than that)

dale_huevo 1y ago

30 years ago we could play Doom with 4 MB of RAM. Web development has devolved to the point where now you need 32 GB to view a Chinese take-out menu.

acdha 1y ago

Firefox takes less than half a GB base plus your usage, so you might want to see which extensions are bloating it up.

ashwinsundar 1y ago

Uninstall Firefox and stop developing junk in Next.js or any other vendor-as-a-service frameworks Install htop/btop and be more conscious about what your machine is actually doing. Needing more than 32GB RAM to develop a website is absurd

tcfhgj 1y ago
Firefox is the only browser with manifest v2 support

Macha 1y ago

My firefox is currently on 450mb on RAM, putting it in third place behind KDE's file indexer and one of the currently running electron instances. If you use Linux, then you're not stuck pre-dedicating a big block of RAM to a VM to run docker in, you're just using whatever the container is using.

numpad0 1y ago

I've never got upvotes reciting this but won't stop doing: there's right amount of sluggishness that the majority wants, and both software bloat and debloat happens until it hits honey-like sublime-to-some lagging is achieved. Only software and technologies that are _buttery_ smooth, not ethanoly smooth, will survive, and nothing will ever solve the software sluggishness that frustrates some, which unfortunately include myself.

paddy_m 1y ago

FWIW I didn't choose the docker or nextjs stack. Sometimes you have clients or work at a job that makes tech stack choices you don't agree with.

v5v3 1y ago

Switch from docker to one of the other alternatives and wi be less ram probably.

Nextgrid 1y ago

Since you mention "Docker VM" I'm assuming you're using a Mac? If so my best advice is to not use Docker for day-to-day development; reverse-engineer the docker-compose.yml/etc and run what you'd run in containers locally. As a web developer I've been getting away with doing this for almost a decade now. It's a one-time cost to review what containers the app needs and then map that to a native world (install Postgres/etc via homebrew, adjust the env vars, etc). The only time I run Docker nowadays is when I actually need to work on the Dockerfile itself and need to test it locally.

yread 1y ago

Get a proper laptop where you can install sodimm memory and m2 ssds. A previous gen base model with decent screen Elitebook 8xx or Thinkpad T1x, 128gb ddr5 kit is 300€, 4tb ssd 200€ and you dont have to worry about upgrades. My 5yr old machine has 64gb/4tb, it was doable for a long time