5 ms·

Startup Heroku (YC W08) Now Hosting 40,000+ Apps

54 points by hshah 17y ago

mark_l_watson 17y ago
I'm writing an article for DevX as we speak for Heroku deployments. I think that Heroku is a good alternative for some applications where saving money by managing your own EC2s is offset by decreased development and admin costs. I'm also writing about Heroku deployments that use remote CouchDB or MongoDB services.
- jamesheroku 17y ago
  We've seen a ton of Couch and Mongo apps lately - works very well with Heroku. Check out http://www.mongohq.com http://www.mongohq.com.
woid 17y ago
congrats!
callmeed 17y ago
Perhaps this isn't the best place to say this, but since Heroku is a YC company, maybe someone is listening: I want to use Heroku for some upcoming projects, however they require the uploading of high-res images. Every time I've tested things on their free plan: - Uploads over 5mb cause errors 50% of the time - Some ImageMagick functions don't seem to be available Are these limitations that paying plans don't experience? Or are my needs simply out of the scope of Heroku's target market? I want to give you my money :) ... (BTW, congrats on all the growth)
- nudded 17y ago
  > - Uploads over 5mb cause errors 50% of the time the free plan only has 5mb of storage
  - jamesheroku 17y ago
    Storage limits are for database data only, they don't apply to assets like uploads. Assets should be stored in an asset store, like S3.
- jot 17y ago
  I use direct uploads to S3 to get around this. It works much better as a long term solution and you can easily do image processing somewhere else in the background.
  - jamesheroku 17y ago
    Exactly. Most people use DelayedJob to do image processing in the background - also the correct/scalable way to do it. More here: http://docs.heroku.com/background-jobs http://docs.heroku.com/background-jobs http://docs.heroku.com/delayed-job http://docs.heroku.com/delayed-job
  - callmeed 17y ago
    Right, but doesn't this effectively double or triple your bandwidth usage on S3? (since you're uploading, downloading, then re-uploading)
    - jamesheroku 17y ago
      Transfer between S3 and your Heroku app (which lives inside EC2) is free.
- jamesheroku 17y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. === ImageMagick We have a couple thousand apps using ImageMagick/RMagick, and haven't had any reports of missing functions. We are running ImageMagick 6.2.4 (will be updated to 6.3 sometime soon), so you might check that, and also be sure you aren't trying to use custom-compiled options. If you still have trouble, open a ticket and we'll take care of it: http://support.heroku.com/tickets/new http://support.heroku.com/tickets/new === Uploads We also have thousands of apps doing large file uploads. They should be done as described here: http://docs.heroku.com/s3 http://docs.heroku.com/s3 Specifically, for larger uploads (we recommend for anything bigger than 4MB), it's wise not to run the upload direct to a dyno, tying up one of your app servers and risking a timeout - it's just not a scalable way to do it. A good pattern is to upload direct to S3 instead, as directed at the bottom of the page. We recommend the S3 SWF Upload plugin: http://github.com/GreenAsJade/s3-swf-upload-plugin/tree/master http://github.com/GreenAsJade/s3-swf-upload-plugin/tree/mast...
  - callmeed 17y ago
    Thanks James. I appreciate the info. Right now, I prefer to upload to the local filesystem then process and store on S3 via DelayedJob. But I will give this a try. Are there any plans for add-ons that allow EBS storage (or something along those lines)?
    - jamesheroku 17y ago
      We aren't planning to provide any additional types of file storage, as we don't believe that the local file system should be used at all in a scalable app, as it creates state at the app server. We do provide access to /tmp if you need scratch file space for processing (it is not persistent between requests). More info here: http://docs.heroku.com/constraints#read-only-filesystem http://docs.heroku.com/constraints#read-only-filesystem
asdf333 17y ago
Are they still supporting the herokugarden editor? That thing was awesome since designers could get started w/o installing anything at all. Feels like they are no longer supporting that. Is that right?
- jamesheroku 17y ago
  Correct, the editor is no longer supported. We hope to bring it back sometime in the future.
  - xavi 17y ago
    Now that will be specially interesting for people that want to develop using Chrome OS computers.
  - freetard 17y ago
    You could build on bespin, they have git and hg hook, I guess a heroku hook would be less work than supporting a whole editor.
- va_coder 17y ago
  The problem with the editor is that it gave people the impression that Heroku was a toy, which is what I thought when I tried it. I retried it 2 months ago and saw it is definitely not a toy. I think it rocks. I love that recent article with the headline 'you have to be an idiot not to use Heroku'.
csallen 17y ago
Congrats Heroku. We've been building our app on Heroku for a few months now, and it's been a great experience. Seems like we bug oren@heroku.com almost every day, and his responses are always quick and helpful. Keep up the good work and the great customer service!
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
freetard 17y ago
Any idea how many paying clients they have? I know they offer a fremium (which is good).
quickpost 17y ago
Does anyone know who did the artwork for the site? It's beautiful stuff. Example: http://heroku.com/pricing#ronin-1 http://heroku.com/pricing#ronin-1

54 points by hshah 17y ago

I'm writing an article for DevX as we speak for Heroku deployments. I think that Heroku is a good alternative for some applications where saving money by managing your own EC2s is offset by decreased development and admin costs. I'm also writing about Heroku deployments that use remote CouchDB or MongoDB services.

jamesheroku 17y ago
We've seen a ton of Couch and Mongo apps lately - works very well with Heroku. Check out http://www.mongohq.com http://www.mongohq.com.

woid 17y ago

congrats!

callmeed 17y ago

Perhaps this isn't the best place to say this, but since Heroku is a YC company, maybe someone is listening: I want to use Heroku for some upcoming projects, however they require the uploading of high-res images. Every time I've tested things on their free plan: - Uploads over 5mb cause errors 50% of the time - Some ImageMagick functions don't seem to be available Are these limitations that paying plans don't experience? Or are my needs simply out of the scope of Heroku's target market? I want to give you my money :) ... (BTW, congrats on all the growth)

nudded 17y ago
> - Uploads over 5mb cause errors 50% of the time the free plan only has 5mb of storage
- jamesheroku 17y ago
  Storage limits are for database data only, they don't apply to assets like uploads. Assets should be stored in an asset store, like S3.
jot 17y ago
I use direct uploads to S3 to get around this. It works much better as a long term solution and you can easily do image processing somewhere else in the background.
- jamesheroku 17y ago
  Exactly. Most people use DelayedJob to do image processing in the background - also the correct/scalable way to do it. More here: http://docs.heroku.com/background-jobs http://docs.heroku.com/background-jobs http://docs.heroku.com/delayed-job http://docs.heroku.com/delayed-job
- callmeed 17y ago
  Right, but doesn't this effectively double or triple your bandwidth usage on S3? (since you're uploading, downloading, then re-uploading)
  - jamesheroku 17y ago
    Transfer between S3 and your Heroku app (which lives inside EC2) is free.
jamesheroku 17y ago
Thanks for the feedback. === ImageMagick We have a couple thousand apps using ImageMagick/RMagick, and haven't had any reports of missing functions. We are running ImageMagick 6.2.4 (will be updated to 6.3 sometime soon), so you might check that, and also be sure you aren't trying to use custom-compiled options. If you still have trouble, open a ticket and we'll take care of it: http://support.heroku.com/tickets/new http://support.heroku.com/tickets/new === Uploads We also have thousands of apps doing large file uploads. They should be done as described here: http://docs.heroku.com/s3 http://docs.heroku.com/s3 Specifically, for larger uploads (we recommend for anything bigger than 4MB), it's wise not to run the upload direct to a dyno, tying up one of your app servers and risking a timeout - it's just not a scalable way to do it. A good pattern is to upload direct to S3 instead, as directed at the bottom of the page. We recommend the S3 SWF Upload plugin: http://github.com/GreenAsJade/s3-swf-upload-plugin/tree/master http://github.com/GreenAsJade/s3-swf-upload-plugin/tree/mast...
- callmeed 17y ago
  Thanks James. I appreciate the info. Right now, I prefer to upload to the local filesystem then process and store on S3 via DelayedJob. But I will give this a try. Are there any plans for add-ons that allow EBS storage (or something along those lines)?
  - jamesheroku 17y ago
    We aren't planning to provide any additional types of file storage, as we don't believe that the local file system should be used at all in a scalable app, as it creates state at the app server. We do provide access to /tmp if you need scratch file space for processing (it is not persistent between requests). More info here: http://docs.heroku.com/constraints#read-only-filesystem http://docs.heroku.com/constraints#read-only-filesystem

asdf333 17y ago

Are they still supporting the herokugarden editor? That thing was awesome since designers could get started w/o installing anything at all. Feels like they are no longer supporting that. Is that right?

jamesheroku 17y ago
Correct, the editor is no longer supported. We hope to bring it back sometime in the future.
- xavi 17y ago
  Now that will be specially interesting for people that want to develop using Chrome OS computers.
- freetard 17y ago
  You could build on bespin, they have git and hg hook, I guess a heroku hook would be less work than supporting a whole editor.
va_coder 17y ago
The problem with the editor is that it gave people the impression that Heroku was a toy, which is what I thought when I tried it. I retried it 2 months ago and saw it is definitely not a toy. I think it rocks. I love that recent article with the headline 'you have to be an idiot not to use Heroku'.

csallen 17y ago

Congrats Heroku. We've been building our app on Heroku for a few months now, and it's been a great experience. Seems like we bug oren@heroku.com almost every day, and his responses are always quick and helpful. Keep up the good work and the great customer service!

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

freetard 17y ago

Any idea how many paying clients they have? I know they offer a fremium (which is good).

quickpost 17y ago

Does anyone know who did the artwork for the site? It's beautiful stuff. Example: http://heroku.com/pricing#ronin-1 http://heroku.com/pricing#ronin-1