12 ms·

Show HN: Cloudron – Get Your Own Cloud

64 points by nebulon 11y ago

nebulon 11y ago
Hi everyone, co-founder here. We are now in developer beta. Please request an invite if you would like to develop Cloudron apps. https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html
- nivertech 11y ago
  How Cloudron differs from the following projects? - http://cozy.io/en/ http://cozy.io/en/ - https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ - http://www.cloudstead.io/ http://www.cloudstead.io/
  - nebulon 11y ago
    From what I understand cozy.io and cloudstead.io are focusing on specific services around personal information, like owncloud. Our architecture allows installing arbitrary apps like owncloud as an app. Cozy.io and cloudstead.io would not have gogs or gitlab as apps. Sandstorm and us are trying to solve very similar issues, but the approach and architecture is different.
    - mwcampbell 11y ago
      Can you go into more detail on the differences between Cloudron and Sandstorm?
      - nebulon 11y ago
        From a developer point of view we try to keep changes required for existing apps to be ported to a minimum. To achieve this, we use docker as well as an heroku inspired deployment approach. Sandstorm have their own containerization. You can see how much porting effort is required for Cloudron, by looking at our current samples of ported apps https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html#samples https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html#samples
kilimchoi 11y ago
Looks good! Great Job!
zodPod 11y ago
What are you guys looking at price-wise for these tiers? Kind of annoying that you don't even attempt to list them.
- nebulon 11y ago
  Hi, sorry for not listing them yet. We are currently not able to provide any numbers, as we are figuring out how much resources the various models will need.
condescendence 11y ago
Site looks great, the video down the bottom has a pricing model in it, and the sites does not. From the looks of it, the price model in the video was just set for development reasons because it's listing at $0.2/month. I would fix this, you don't want to give people any wrong ideas about your price model if you haven't finalized it yet. The software and setup ease, from what I'm able to read, seems pretty nifty. There's a good product here just be careful not to sell yourself short. From a product identification point of view, I think it would be good for you to list the specifications (at least hard drive space for example) of the VPS you're using in the backend. It would only make sense especially for some of the apps you want to provide such as OwnCloud which is basically to stores files and such. These were just some thoughts from a first look at the site, take them with a grain of salt.
- nebulon 11y ago
  Thanks for hint, the video was taken by me from a developer build. We have not yet figured out the pricing model.
  - condescendence 11y ago
    If you'd like some instant feedback, or a test user to help with dev feel free to shoot me an email: james -at- royalholdings.net
    - nebulon 11y ago
      Thanks for your enthusiasm! Let me at johannes@cloudron.io know if you haven't received the invite. Looking forward to any feedback from your side.
      - xxdesmus 11y ago
        Would love to poke around sooner than later also. :)
        11y ago
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Rule of thumb: mutually distrusting users sharing physical resources typically creates vulnerabilities. Do everything right and you still have covert channels. So long as they use physical separation rather than virtual then I'm excited to see this development. Separation that's (a) physically isolated per customer and (b) behind a stable interface allow the specifics of the security to constantly improve without work on the customer's end while blocking risks that come with virtualization. See the co-founder in the comments. nebulon, would you clarify if it's physical and how do the boxes interface at the networking layer? That would be a start on upper-bounds of security.
- nebulon 11y ago
  We do not run physical servers and have only virtual separation between users. Thanks for the input, we will work to clarify that. Please see https://www.cloudron.io/faq.html https://www.cloudron.io/faq.html
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    So it's basically still in same ballpark as other cloud providers with pro's and con's. You've just added some logical isolation, extra functions like authentication, and procedural/policy protections for customers as a differentiator, yes?
    - nebulon 11y ago
      While the features you list are important and true, our main focus is on convenience. To be able setup your personal cloud without deep technical knowledge. You can read up our intentions at https://dev.cloudron.io/about.html https://dev.cloudron.io/about.html
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I appreciate you clarifying. Yeah, that's certainly helpful to all kinds of people. Much easier to get started and grow in that market than pricey, bare-metal. Good luck on your business.
sirspudd 11y ago
The video does look cool. I keep on intending to use my primary Linux dev box as an outwards facing web server, but every time I take steps towards this, I realize how much I would be dropping my shorts in the process. You people should be targeting professional photographers, smug mug and friends offer really limited functionality to content owners who really should control their own material.
simonturvey 11y ago
Great to see this launched at last. Congratulations guys! Good luck.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Just did some research. Turns out there is a combo of physical servers and cloud-style provisioning/pricing: it's called bare metal clouds. Gotta watch it as some say that but are virtual. Here's one I found that's physical: http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers The physical separation is a prerequisite for any real security as you need control over what executes in the box and definitely don't want untrusted processes sharing resources outside of what's already in TCB. Combining a rapid-provisioning, paid-hourly, physical hosting solution with strong privacy policies (e.g. MyKolab's) and terms of service backed by contract would be an awesome offing for a niche market. The niche, off top of head, is essentially two groups: (a) people needing temporary and/or scalable resources for operation on private data; (b) people wanting steady, scalable, private servers who don't want to go all out on running their own. Category (b) would put the physical cloud in competition with with dedicated, hosting market. Potential advantages are manageability, scaling, cost reduction due to pay-per-use, and integration with popular cloud tech (eg Docker) pre-installed on that server. So, anyone looking for a business plan to submit to YCombinator feel free to do an assessment of this market as I think it has potential. The existence of the above company confirms that but I can't say how big this niche is.
- condescendence 11y ago
  I don't mean to be an asshole, but your criticism is basically along the lines of "You're doing this all wrong, do it how I say this should be done" They don't have physical servers, he's already answered that in your last comment. Each user is going to get their own VPS through AWS or another provider, so most likely these "hosts" are technically physically separated. This service is basically a drag and drop app foundation, its a glorified SaaS. It's adding a layer of ease between having to purchase your own VPS and deploy these apps. Now someone can just purchase through this service, get their VPS purchased for them and deployed with a nice interface that magically sets up software. What you're mentioning is an entirely different business plan on its own. You're talking about buying physical hardware, servers, switches, etc. Which would require setting up VLans...etc for true separation. Cloudron is making an argument about privacy through the features they offer. I'm sure they would have loved to buy hundreds of servers and allow for everyone to have their own little Fort Knox in a Box but this is unobtainable from their viewpoint. They've come up with compromises to create a unified and monetarily obtainable product. A good product is a compromise between what's needed, and what's available. You can't make something out of nothing (most of the time). If the resources aren't available, or if implementability isn't possible then you start to compromise. This is what happened here. Two guys who had a similar idea of privacy wanted to get together to provide a nice server/cloud service, and this cool little website is the result of that. Maybe in the future they can get their Fort Knox going, but for right now I don't see that happening because of the costs associated with it.
dochtman 11y ago
I don't really understand this. "Private Cloud", to me, means a cloud that only I have access too. If you actually have access to my infrastructure, what's "private" about it?
- simonturvey 11y ago
  Well, at some point you have to trust the legally binding contract you enter in to. Otherwise you're proposing to put servers in your garage (or wherever) which is precisely the complexity this service is attempting to get away from.
  - rubiquity 11y ago
    > Otherwise you're proposing to put servers in your garage Which is also likely to be against the contract you signed with your ISP unless you bought a business line.
- nebulon 11y ago
  If we take the term "private" to an extreme, you are absolutely right. We took the term in a similar way as it is used with virtual private servers. Also our business model will be based on providing the logistics around a private cloud, which focuses on convenience.
  - simonturvey 11y ago
    Is there any plan to allow the service to point at one's own DO or AWS account? That would remove one more privacy concern some folk seem to have.
    - nebulon 11y ago
      Not currently, but we will be working with VPS providers to provide this option.
  - mwilcox 11y ago
    "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud" are pretty standard industry terms for using the same orchestration systems on your own data center vs. an outsourced one.
vishalzone2002 11y ago
a hypervisor is the only private cloud :)
ams6110 11y ago
How is this not just a regular VPS with the word "cloud" nailed on?
- shayanjm 11y ago
  I came here to ask that EXACT question - fighting the good fight
- nebulon 11y ago
  VPS only gets you a server. If you were to install apps (gitlab or wordpress or a wiki) on your server, you need to take care of keeping the server updated, the apps updated, backing up the apps, configuring dns, installing certs. etc. In addition, each of the apps need authentication as well. This is the pain we intend to solve - you can install apps from our App Store. We take care of backups, updates, dns, certs etc. You can install apps using the same set of credentials / single Sign On. You can read more at https://cloudron.io/features.html https://cloudron.io/features.html. Think of this as a 'smart server', a server intended to be used by anyone without deep technical knowledge (or doesn't want to put in the effort of self-hosting). There's also a video on the landing page, please check it out.
  - bigiain 11y ago
    How does it differ from cPanel/Plesk and similar non-cloud-branded server management solutions?
jedisct1 11y ago
Looks very similar to https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/

64 points by nebulon 11y ago

Hi everyone, co-founder here. We are now in developer beta. Please request an invite if you would like to develop Cloudron apps. https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html

nivertech 11y ago
How Cloudron differs from the following projects? - http://cozy.io/en/ http://cozy.io/en/ - https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/ - http://www.cloudstead.io/ http://www.cloudstead.io/
- nebulon 11y ago
  From what I understand cozy.io and cloudstead.io are focusing on specific services around personal information, like owncloud. Our architecture allows installing arbitrary apps like owncloud as an app. Cozy.io and cloudstead.io would not have gogs or gitlab as apps. Sandstorm and us are trying to solve very similar issues, but the approach and architecture is different.
  - mwcampbell 11y ago
    Can you go into more detail on the differences between Cloudron and Sandstorm?
    - nebulon 11y ago
      From a developer point of view we try to keep changes required for existing apps to be ported to a minimum. To achieve this, we use docker as well as an heroku inspired deployment approach. Sandstorm have their own containerization. You can see how much porting effort is required for Cloudron, by looking at our current samples of ported apps https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html#samples https://www.cloudron.io/documentation.html#samples

kilimchoi 11y ago

Looks good! Great Job!

zodPod 11y ago

What are you guys looking at price-wise for these tiers? Kind of annoying that you don't even attempt to list them.

nebulon 11y ago
Hi, sorry for not listing them yet. We are currently not able to provide any numbers, as we are figuring out how much resources the various models will need.

condescendence 11y ago

Site looks great, the video down the bottom has a pricing model in it, and the sites does not. From the looks of it, the price model in the video was just set for development reasons because it's listing at $0.2/month. I would fix this, you don't want to give people any wrong ideas about your price model if you haven't finalized it yet. The software and setup ease, from what I'm able to read, seems pretty nifty. There's a good product here just be careful not to sell yourself short. From a product identification point of view, I think it would be good for you to list the specifications (at least hard drive space for example) of the VPS you're using in the backend. It would only make sense especially for some of the apps you want to provide such as OwnCloud which is basically to stores files and such. These were just some thoughts from a first look at the site, take them with a grain of salt.

nebulon 11y ago
Thanks for hint, the video was taken by me from a developer build. We have not yet figured out the pricing model.
- condescendence 11y ago
  If you'd like some instant feedback, or a test user to help with dev feel free to shoot me an email: james -at- royalholdings.net
  - nebulon 11y ago
    Thanks for your enthusiasm! Let me at johannes@cloudron.io know if you haven't received the invite. Looking forward to any feedback from your side.
    - xxdesmus 11y ago
      Would love to poke around sooner than later also. :)
      - 11y ago

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Rule of thumb: mutually distrusting users sharing physical resources typically creates vulnerabilities. Do everything right and you still have covert channels. So long as they use physical separation rather than virtual then I'm excited to see this development. Separation that's (a) physically isolated per customer and (b) behind a stable interface allow the specifics of the security to constantly improve without work on the customer's end while blocking risks that come with virtualization. See the co-founder in the comments. nebulon, would you clarify if it's physical and how do the boxes interface at the networking layer? That would be a start on upper-bounds of security.

nebulon 11y ago
We do not run physical servers and have only virtual separation between users. Thanks for the input, we will work to clarify that. Please see https://www.cloudron.io/faq.html https://www.cloudron.io/faq.html
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  So it's basically still in same ballpark as other cloud providers with pro's and con's. You've just added some logical isolation, extra functions like authentication, and procedural/policy protections for customers as a differentiator, yes?
  - nebulon 11y ago
    While the features you list are important and true, our main focus is on convenience. To be able setup your personal cloud without deep technical knowledge. You can read up our intentions at https://dev.cloudron.io/about.html https://dev.cloudron.io/about.html
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      I appreciate you clarifying. Yeah, that's certainly helpful to all kinds of people. Much easier to get started and grow in that market than pricey, bare-metal. Good luck on your business.

sirspudd 11y ago

The video does look cool. I keep on intending to use my primary Linux dev box as an outwards facing web server, but every time I take steps towards this, I realize how much I would be dropping my shorts in the process. You people should be targeting professional photographers, smug mug and friends offer really limited functionality to content owners who really should control their own material.

simonturvey 11y ago

Great to see this launched at last. Congratulations guys! Good luck.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Just did some research. Turns out there is a combo of physical servers and cloud-style provisioning/pricing: it's called bare metal clouds. Gotta watch it as some say that but are virtual. Here's one I found that's physical: http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers http://www.softlayer.com/bare-metal-servers The physical separation is a prerequisite for any real security as you need control over what executes in the box and definitely don't want untrusted processes sharing resources outside of what's already in TCB. Combining a rapid-provisioning, paid-hourly, physical hosting solution with strong privacy policies (e.g. MyKolab's) and terms of service backed by contract would be an awesome offing for a niche market. The niche, off top of head, is essentially two groups: (a) people needing temporary and/or scalable resources for operation on private data; (b) people wanting steady, scalable, private servers who don't want to go all out on running their own. Category (b) would put the physical cloud in competition with with dedicated, hosting market. Potential advantages are manageability, scaling, cost reduction due to pay-per-use, and integration with popular cloud tech (eg Docker) pre-installed on that server. So, anyone looking for a business plan to submit to YCombinator feel free to do an assessment of this market as I think it has potential. The existence of the above company confirms that but I can't say how big this niche is.

condescendence 11y ago
I don't mean to be an asshole, but your criticism is basically along the lines of "You're doing this all wrong, do it how I say this should be done" They don't have physical servers, he's already answered that in your last comment. Each user is going to get their own VPS through AWS or another provider, so most likely these "hosts" are technically physically separated. This service is basically a drag and drop app foundation, its a glorified SaaS. It's adding a layer of ease between having to purchase your own VPS and deploy these apps. Now someone can just purchase through this service, get their VPS purchased for them and deployed with a nice interface that magically sets up software. What you're mentioning is an entirely different business plan on its own. You're talking about buying physical hardware, servers, switches, etc. Which would require setting up VLans...etc for true separation. Cloudron is making an argument about privacy through the features they offer. I'm sure they would have loved to buy hundreds of servers and allow for everyone to have their own little Fort Knox in a Box but this is unobtainable from their viewpoint. They've come up with compromises to create a unified and monetarily obtainable product. A good product is a compromise between what's needed, and what's available. You can't make something out of nothing (most of the time). If the resources aren't available, or if implementability isn't possible then you start to compromise. This is what happened here. Two guys who had a similar idea of privacy wanted to get together to provide a nice server/cloud service, and this cool little website is the result of that. Maybe in the future they can get their Fort Knox going, but for right now I don't see that happening because of the costs associated with it.

dochtman 11y ago

I don't really understand this. "Private Cloud", to me, means a cloud that only I have access too. If you actually have access to my infrastructure, what's "private" about it?

simonturvey 11y ago
Well, at some point you have to trust the legally binding contract you enter in to. Otherwise you're proposing to put servers in your garage (or wherever) which is precisely the complexity this service is attempting to get away from.
- rubiquity 11y ago
  > Otherwise you're proposing to put servers in your garage Which is also likely to be against the contract you signed with your ISP unless you bought a business line.
nebulon 11y ago
If we take the term "private" to an extreme, you are absolutely right. We took the term in a similar way as it is used with virtual private servers. Also our business model will be based on providing the logistics around a private cloud, which focuses on convenience.
- simonturvey 11y ago
  Is there any plan to allow the service to point at one's own DO or AWS account? That would remove one more privacy concern some folk seem to have.
  - nebulon 11y ago
    Not currently, but we will be working with VPS providers to provide this option.
- mwilcox 11y ago
  "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud" are pretty standard industry terms for using the same orchestration systems on your own data center vs. an outsourced one.

vishalzone2002 11y ago

a hypervisor is the only private cloud :)

ams6110 11y ago

How is this not just a regular VPS with the word "cloud" nailed on?

shayanjm 11y ago
I came here to ask that EXACT question - fighting the good fight
nebulon 11y ago
VPS only gets you a server. If you were to install apps (gitlab or wordpress or a wiki) on your server, you need to take care of keeping the server updated, the apps updated, backing up the apps, configuring dns, installing certs. etc. In addition, each of the apps need authentication as well. This is the pain we intend to solve - you can install apps from our App Store. We take care of backups, updates, dns, certs etc. You can install apps using the same set of credentials / single Sign On. You can read more at https://cloudron.io/features.html https://cloudron.io/features.html. Think of this as a 'smart server', a server intended to be used by anyone without deep technical knowledge (or doesn't want to put in the effort of self-hosting). There's also a video on the landing page, please check it out.
- bigiain 11y ago
  How does it differ from cPanel/Plesk and similar non-cloud-branded server management solutions?

jedisct1 11y ago

Looks very similar to https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/