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Until shit hits the fan. I really don't understand how all these "instead of Heroku just use X"-people do not understand that one of the main benefits of Herok

Until shit hits the fan. I really don't understand how all these "instead of Heroku just use X"-people do not understand that one of the main benefits of Heroku is not managing servers. If your app on Heroku has an issue Heroku will fix it (not your app of course). If your app on Docker has an issue. Who you gonna call?

arihant 12y ago
You don't understand. A big barrier to entry for competing with Heroku for any other startup is creating a similar virtual environment that abstracts away from metal machines for people who just want to write apps. Docker provides that to startups. So we will see more startups competing in this space, you are going to use them and call them when shit hits the fan. Recently, Google App Engine allows deploying apps in any language using Docker. So, with Docker, App Engine is suddenly a competition to Heroku for Ruby programmers.
- sleepyhead 12y ago
  So I don't understand and I can switch to other companies (startups coming) that will work like Heroku - got it.
- Kiro 12y ago
  Why would you need something like Docker for Google App Engine?
  - jon-wood 12y ago
    I think they meant Google Compute Engine.
  - crb 12y ago
    To use App Engine's orchestration layer for any runtime at all you want to bring to it. https://www.google.com/events/io/io14videos/54bf5fec-50ec-e311-903f-00155d5066d7 https://www.google.com/events/io/io14videos/54bf5fec-50ec-e3...
klochner 12y ago
Docker + {aws, digital ocean, rackspace} is substantially cheaper than heroku. Docker makes these services relatively comparable to Heroku in complexity, so the heroku value prop has been diluted.
- jasonmccay 12y ago
  This may be true, but it also makes the common assumption that your time (or the time of your team) is somehow worth $0 dollars. But, I imagine that you would be the first to say that your time is worth much more than $0 dollars. Put another way, hardware stores sell paint and paint supplies all day. Buying those and painting a room yourself is certainly cheaper, but it assumes you have the extra time to paint and don't mind you being the laborer. Hiring a painter costs more, but saves you a ton of time, energy, and elevates the level of expertise you are bringing to the job. Getting started is one thing. The ease of how you maintain and grow is another.
  - ukd1 12y ago
    This. No one ever factors in Ops time when I hear them complaining about Heroku.
    - jon-wood 12y ago
      I certainly do, and I can tell you the amount of time I've spent managing servers over the past year has cost us less than running our entire production stack on Heroku would have done. So has the odd bit of downtime we've encountered because I've not got the same level of experience as Heroku's ops team.
    - nirvdrum 12y ago
      I'm not sure ops time is even the one to worry about. Most things I've learned I've learned the hard way. So a server going berserk isn't fun, but it's not like I just wasted either time or money on it. I learned something. I better understand my execution environment. Downtime, on the other hand, is just lost revenue opportunity.
  - 12y ago
saryant 12y ago
I can't deploy Kafka to Heroku. I can technically deploy Akka but 1X/2X instances aren't going to cut it and PX dynos are hilariously expensive, plus clustering isn't possible. Yeah, if your app can fit on Heroku, leave it there. But Heroku is not a silver bullet for all types of apps. Containerizing them makes it much easier to add and remove instances, easily deploy new services, move instances around as underlying resources die, etc. Docker doesn't provide everything to make this happen but it's the key. I've spent the past two weeks moving an Akka cluster into Docker with CoreOS. I'm about to deploy Kafka in the same way and so far it's been fantastic.
- icebraining 12y ago
  I can't deploy Kafka to Heroku But you couldn't before either and yet Heroku still existed, so how does that make Docker an Heroku-killer?
  - saryant 12y ago
    Fair enough. My point is that Docker makes packaging up the various services I need to deploy much easier and more predictable. Now, rather than spin up three EC2 nodes to be Kafka instances, I just use fleet to submit three Kafka units and it finds available resources among my existing CoreOS cluster. If I need more capacity, I spin up more generic CoreOS instances on EC2 and fleet starts using them. The groundwork is being laid and I think we're going to see a lot of competition in Heroku's space. Given the price difference between Heroku and EC2 (much less DigitalOcean) I think there's a lot of profit margin for competitors to attack. That's Heroku's weakness: it's easier than ever to build the equivalent functionality.
korzun 12y ago
I'm going to call the provider that hosts my docker instances and get it sorted out.
reedlaw 12y ago
Heroku has its own issues. Maybe they will fix them quickly, maybe not. At least on your own server you are in charge.
- adamnemecek 12y ago
  Being in charge is, to quote OP, only good until shit hits the fan.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

arihant 12y ago

You don't understand. A big barrier to entry for competing with Heroku for any other startup is creating a similar virtual environment that abstracts away from metal machines for people who just want to write apps. Docker provides that to startups. So we will see more startups competing in this space, you are going to use them and call them when shit hits the fan. Recently, Google App Engine allows deploying apps in any language using Docker. So, with Docker, App Engine is suddenly a competition to Heroku for Ruby programmers.

sleepyhead 12y ago
So I don't understand and I can switch to other companies (startups coming) that will work like Heroku - got it.
Kiro 12y ago
Why would you need something like Docker for Google App Engine?
- jon-wood 12y ago
  I think they meant Google Compute Engine.
- crb 12y ago
  To use App Engine's orchestration layer for any runtime at all you want to bring to it. https://www.google.com/events/io/io14videos/54bf5fec-50ec-e311-903f-00155d5066d7 https://www.google.com/events/io/io14videos/54bf5fec-50ec-e3...

klochner 12y ago

Docker + {aws, digital ocean, rackspace} is substantially cheaper than heroku. Docker makes these services relatively comparable to Heroku in complexity, so the heroku value prop has been diluted.

jasonmccay 12y ago
This may be true, but it also makes the common assumption that your time (or the time of your team) is somehow worth $0 dollars. But, I imagine that you would be the first to say that your time is worth much more than $0 dollars. Put another way, hardware stores sell paint and paint supplies all day. Buying those and painting a room yourself is certainly cheaper, but it assumes you have the extra time to paint and don't mind you being the laborer. Hiring a painter costs more, but saves you a ton of time, energy, and elevates the level of expertise you are bringing to the job. Getting started is one thing. The ease of how you maintain and grow is another.
- ukd1 12y ago
  This. No one ever factors in Ops time when I hear them complaining about Heroku.
  - jon-wood 12y ago
    I certainly do, and I can tell you the amount of time I've spent managing servers over the past year has cost us less than running our entire production stack on Heroku would have done. So has the odd bit of downtime we've encountered because I've not got the same level of experience as Heroku's ops team.
  - nirvdrum 12y ago
    I'm not sure ops time is even the one to worry about. Most things I've learned I've learned the hard way. So a server going berserk isn't fun, but it's not like I just wasted either time or money on it. I learned something. I better understand my execution environment. Downtime, on the other hand, is just lost revenue opportunity.
- 12y ago

saryant 12y ago

I can't deploy Kafka to Heroku. I can technically deploy Akka but 1X/2X instances aren't going to cut it and PX dynos are hilariously expensive, plus clustering isn't possible. Yeah, if your app can fit on Heroku, leave it there. But Heroku is not a silver bullet for all types of apps. Containerizing them makes it much easier to add and remove instances, easily deploy new services, move instances around as underlying resources die, etc. Docker doesn't provide everything to make this happen but it's the key. I've spent the past two weeks moving an Akka cluster into Docker with CoreOS. I'm about to deploy Kafka in the same way and so far it's been fantastic.

icebraining 12y ago
I can't deploy Kafka to Heroku But you couldn't before either and yet Heroku still existed, so how does that make Docker an Heroku-killer?
- saryant 12y ago
  Fair enough. My point is that Docker makes packaging up the various services I need to deploy much easier and more predictable. Now, rather than spin up three EC2 nodes to be Kafka instances, I just use fleet to submit three Kafka units and it finds available resources among my existing CoreOS cluster. If I need more capacity, I spin up more generic CoreOS instances on EC2 and fleet starts using them. The groundwork is being laid and I think we're going to see a lot of competition in Heroku's space. Given the price difference between Heroku and EC2 (much less DigitalOcean) I think there's a lot of profit margin for competitors to attack. That's Heroku's weakness: it's easier than ever to build the equivalent functionality.

korzun 12y ago

I'm going to call the provider that hosts my docker instances and get it sorted out.

reedlaw 12y ago

Heroku has its own issues. Maybe they will fix them quickly, maybe not. At least on your own server you are in charge.

adamnemecek 12y ago
Being in charge is, to quote OP, only good until shit hits the fan.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]