This is awesome. I’ve also built a number of services for myself (Pinterest style photo hosting for archival/research purposes, analytics service for my websites, tracker for the books I’ve read, message board for micro communities I’m a part of, etc). I also share them with friends who express interest in them.
The costs are minimal (they all run on a shared $4/mo instance + $10/yr domain per project) and I get to control where the data lives, the features I want to have, etc.
No need to worry about getting the rug pulled on me because the company got acquired or needs to raise revenue or anything like that. No frustration because a redesign made the UI worse or removed features I cared about.
It obviously takes a bit of time upfront, but I see it as a long term investment in my productivity. I use boring, basic, stable technologies so once something is deployed it keeps on humming with extremely minimal involvement on my behalf.
I’m basically slowly working on replacing pretty much every 3rd party app I use with something I wrote myself (it’s going to take a while but that’s okay). My grandpa was a carpenter and pretty much every piece of furniture in the house was something he or his friends had made. As software craftspeople, we should strive to do the same with our digital houses.
Kudos to the author and anyone else who does this. You don’t hear about these things in the mainstream because there’s no reason for people doing this to shout it from the rooftops, but this is software at its best.
rambambram 40 minutes ago [-]
> I’m basically slowly working on replacing pretty much every 3rd party app I use with something I wrote myself (it’s going to take a while but that’s okay). My grandpa was a carpenter and pretty much every piece of furniture in the house was something he or his friends had made. As software craftspeople, we should strive to do the same with our digital houses.
I do the same. Both with software and furniture in my house.
I've built all kinds of little dashboards, a big website software project, a local-only bookkeeping system, etc.
With furniture, I'm not that far that I dare to build a chair or couch, but I've built a bed frame, an over-engineered shoe rack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXzO8BOIlhk), a weight rack, and now I have some bookshelves in the works.
I don't know if you're Japanese, maybe it's coincidence, but I really get inspired by watching Japanese craftsmen on Youtube. It's not only the techniques or style that I like, but the careful working on something that should last.
videogreg93 36 minutes ago [-]
What service are you using that's 4$/month? I've used the free tier of Render on the past which I enjoyed but the lowest paid plan is 20$/month.
mdrzn 4 hours ago [-]
Same.
Since Claude 3.5 Sonnet has been released I've been building a lot of "microservices" that are just useful to me, or Chrome Extensions that I've seen that I just recreated using Cursor. Awesome learning experience and now I can customize them as needed.
ffsm8 3 hours ago [-]
I think you mean that you've been building a lot of simple applications? Because that's not really what microservices are.
I mean sure it's just a word and HN especially loves to spit on original definitions, but it is always kinda jarring to hear these technical terms in settings that have pretty much no overlap with the original definition.
dewey 1 hours ago [-]
If you think as yourself as an application and you are surrounding yourself by small service applications that do one specific task...then I could see it make sense.
sim7c00 1 hours ago [-]
this makes it sound very nice. i only do this stuff out of sheer frustration. not understanding stuff (i hate 'magic' , its 1s and 0s...), or not agreeing with decisions after i do understand stuff. i really dislike i have to build everything myself. though then again. i guess i do like building stuff :')... it's a never ending s/shitshow/joy/g
sim7c00 1 hours ago [-]
oh, and yeah, looks like a really nice project honestly. i never do frontend stuff, but when i do, man, something like this would be useful :')... typing chromium index.html -> realizing it just spawned on the different workspace because chromium is trying to be smart (more likely i am being dumb ;D).
having it side by side like that looks really nice if u have the screenspace.
eGQjxkKF6fif 5 hours ago [-]
For the love of technology, and the love of coding, and the love of self hosting, good.
This is the way.
research-studio 35 minutes ago [-]
Oh wow!
And I did not expect to click on this and see a Tyne & Wear Metro project.
I can see why you may have wanted to create one though. Good luck with it!
pomdtr 56 minutes ago [-]
This looks fantastic, I'll make sure to try it!
I've been working on a similar platform (https://smallweb.run), which allows me to host all my side projects from a single root folder. Each subfolder automatically becomes a subdomain, and I can just use vscode remote ssh or mutagen to live edit my websites.
lvturner 7 hours ago [-]
I've recently discovered the joys of vscode-server[0] for this type of use case.
Which you can either serve as a WebApp direct from your machine, or tunnel in from another VSCode instance - including a webhosted version from Microsoft[1]
I may not do that much coding these days, but I already have found it handy for when I forgot to do a Git push! Just log back in to the Web Environment and everything is how I left it.
There’s also code-server by Coder, which you can just run on your own server and open in browser directly. It’s also open source (most tunneling features in VSCode aren’t). https://github.com/coder/code-server
There’s a one-click setup for it in Lunni, a Docker dashboard I’ve been working on (shameless plug): https://lunni.dev/
TheTaytay 2 hours ago [-]
Lunni looks cool. I hear mixed things about Docker Swarm. How has it been to work with?
notpushkin 1 hours ago [-]
Thank you so much!
Personally, Docker Swarm works great for me. I was worried about it for a while, too, but Mirantis seems to maintain it pretty well. There are even new features being shipped, like CSI support back in 2023! I’m thinking about adding a Kubernetes backend though, just in case things get worse for Swarm.
BOOSTERHIDROGEN 3 hours ago [-]
As someone who doesn't code professionally, what is the primary use case that leads to significant daily enhancements for developers?
devdri 4 hours ago [-]
Like other folks here I also made something similar for myself. It started as a jsbin clone, but then I wanted to play with tweaking the environment itself. So now it's become a single editable directory tree where both the editor and the actual projects/demos share common parts of code, all synced between local storage and the server. If I break the editor and refresh the page, there's a simpler alternative editor backup to fix it. Lots of fun with such setup!
This might be a serious problem for tinkering platforms such as Glitch and Kinopio [1]. They are awesome, but they strongly inspire me to take creativity just a little step further and build my own implementation.
This then leads to a fragmented landscape of such services, and none gets enough traction to grow into seriously sustainable popularity.
Just build it for yourself and don't feel bad about not being a startup founder or something. I know it feels a little weird and it takes some adjustment time, but don't compare the joy of building software for yourself to business yardsticks. That stuff won't match anyway.
grimui 8 hours ago [-]
Building custom tools that work for only you is so under rated. I would never use that workflow but it works for the author and that’s awesome!
NitpickLawyer 7 hours ago [-]
> Building custom tools that work for only you is so under rated.
This is one of the top applications for LLM-based dev IMO. With things like aider / cline / cursor / windsurf / bolt it's looking like this will be a lot easier to scaffold small-scale projects that make sense for you and not necessarily turn into products. It suits single-dev / small teams for now, and that's OK.
joshstrange 1 hours ago [-]
This has been my experience as well. I find my much more likely to “build” it myself versus using something off the shelf because it’ll give me full control over the project.
A lot of the reasons I would pull in dependencies for are things I’m either not good at or not fast at writing and in most cases LLMs are good at picking up the slack.
It’s been a joy to write the core logic then have an LLM throw a web GUI frontend together for me so I can iterate faster.
tomglynch 7 hours ago [-]
I’m a big fan of glitch as well, so it’s very impressive you have built the same yourself. Do you self host the server and are there any limitations on languages you can use?
bob1029 4 hours ago [-]
Fantastic. This is something I've thought about doing too. There are days where visual studio's shenanigans make me consider the benefits of a bespoke web based UI very strongly.
With libraries like ace and codemirror available, the hard part is mostly on the server with managing state and integrating tools.
I use C#/.NET for everything, so I'd lean on the Roslyn APIs to handle code completion, reference tracking, workspaces, debugging, etc.
janoelze 5 hours ago [-]
nice work! very similar to the scrappy codepen clone i built for myself, will copy a few things! I've integrated AI edits and use it suprisingly often as well to sketch out mini apps. https://endtime-instruments.org/scratch/
fodkodrasz 5 hours ago [-]
Nice.
One thing I couldn't unsee: The editor and the preview panels seem to have their bottoms misaligned by 1-2px.
dented42 4 hours ago [-]
This is so reminiscent of doing web development in smalltalk with seaside.
genewitch 3 hours ago [-]
Every time I see a smalltalk comment I hope to see a reply along the lines of
> I've been maintaining a Smalltalk compiler, <URL>
But alas. I wonder how hard it is to get a copy of the spec...
skydhash 39 minutes ago [-]
It’s a VM you need. Not a compiler. The Pharo Project’s VM [0] is in C, and not that extensive. Most of the good stuff is written in smalltalk.
The costs are minimal (they all run on a shared $4/mo instance + $10/yr domain per project) and I get to control where the data lives, the features I want to have, etc.
No need to worry about getting the rug pulled on me because the company got acquired or needs to raise revenue or anything like that. No frustration because a redesign made the UI worse or removed features I cared about.
It obviously takes a bit of time upfront, but I see it as a long term investment in my productivity. I use boring, basic, stable technologies so once something is deployed it keeps on humming with extremely minimal involvement on my behalf.
I’m basically slowly working on replacing pretty much every 3rd party app I use with something I wrote myself (it’s going to take a while but that’s okay). My grandpa was a carpenter and pretty much every piece of furniture in the house was something he or his friends had made. As software craftspeople, we should strive to do the same with our digital houses.
Kudos to the author and anyone else who does this. You don’t hear about these things in the mainstream because there’s no reason for people doing this to shout it from the rooftops, but this is software at its best.
I do the same. Both with software and furniture in my house.
I've built all kinds of little dashboards, a big website software project, a local-only bookkeeping system, etc.
With furniture, I'm not that far that I dare to build a chair or couch, but I've built a bed frame, an over-engineered shoe rack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXzO8BOIlhk), a weight rack, and now I have some bookshelves in the works.
I don't know if you're Japanese, maybe it's coincidence, but I really get inspired by watching Japanese craftsmen on Youtube. It's not only the techniques or style that I like, but the careful working on something that should last.
Since Claude 3.5 Sonnet has been released I've been building a lot of "microservices" that are just useful to me, or Chrome Extensions that I've seen that I just recreated using Cursor. Awesome learning experience and now I can customize them as needed.
I mean sure it's just a word and HN especially loves to spit on original definitions, but it is always kinda jarring to hear these technical terms in settings that have pretty much no overlap with the original definition.
having it side by side like that looks really nice if u have the screenspace.
This is the way.
I've been working on a similar platform (https://smallweb.run), which allows me to host all my side projects from a single root folder. Each subfolder automatically becomes a subdomain, and I can just use vscode remote ssh or mutagen to live edit my websites.
Which you can either serve as a WebApp direct from your machine, or tunnel in from another VSCode instance - including a webhosted version from Microsoft[1]
I may not do that much coding these days, but I already have found it handy for when I forgot to do a Git push! Just log back in to the Web Environment and everything is how I left it.
[0] https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/vscode-server [1] https://vscode.dev/
There’s a one-click setup for it in Lunni, a Docker dashboard I’ve been working on (shameless plug): https://lunni.dev/
Personally, Docker Swarm works great for me. I was worried about it for a while, too, but Mirantis seems to maintain it pretty well. There are even new features being shipped, like CSI support back in 2023! I’m thinking about adding a Kubernetes backend though, just in case things get worse for Swarm.
Here's a screenshot with the editor showing a preview when editing itself: https://imgur.com/a/RxMCrlf
This then leads to a fragmented landscape of such services, and none gets enough traction to grow into seriously sustainable popularity.
[1] https://kinopio.club/
This is one of the top applications for LLM-based dev IMO. With things like aider / cline / cursor / windsurf / bolt it's looking like this will be a lot easier to scaffold small-scale projects that make sense for you and not necessarily turn into products. It suits single-dev / small teams for now, and that's OK.
A lot of the reasons I would pull in dependencies for are things I’m either not good at or not fast at writing and in most cases LLMs are good at picking up the slack.
It’s been a joy to write the core logic then have an LLM throw a web GUI frontend together for me so I can iterate faster.
With libraries like ace and codemirror available, the hard part is mostly on the server with managing state and integrating tools.
I use C#/.NET for everything, so I'd lean on the Roslyn APIs to handle code completion, reference tracking, workspaces, debugging, etc.
One thing I couldn't unsee: The editor and the preview panels seem to have their bottoms misaligned by 1-2px.
> I've been maintaining a Smalltalk compiler, <URL>
But alas. I wonder how hard it is to get a copy of the spec...
[0]: https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm
You must know about Ellie, right?
https://ellie-app.com
It does not have git integration like your project though.
Anyway, nice project!!