A few important differences between Convox and other options in the space.
AWS only. We use lots of AWS services to piggy back on all the reliability AWS has baked in. For example we use DynamoDB to record all your builds because none of us want to manage a Postgres for record keeping.
Open source. The layer between you and your AWS account is open, transparent, and modifiable.
Simple. I want to remove as many moving parts as possible, not add a heavy middleware.
Hey there, thanks for putting this out as open source.
Curious: what's your business model? I am starting to write a book about open source business models and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Thanks!
Docker. Docker is working incredibly well in production and in development, particularly if you use only a subset of its features. We're relying on Docker as much as possible for building and deploying your apps.
Workflow / app / developer focused. With convox you deal with `apps`, `certs`, `builds` and `logs`. All the low level details are hidden. I think most people dont want to or shouldn't worry about "containers".
What's Convox's business/funding model? Not skeptical, just genuinely curious and can't tell from browsing the site. Also, what are your other offerings? If everything between AWS and my site is free, what else is there to offer?
What will a newly created rack cost on AWS? Trying this out now, but want to get an idea of what it will cost me. Is there a list of all the AWS services this uses?
The base cost for a rack is about $85/mo. Convox is extremely cost effective for small businesses and up, but would be expensive for running a single, low-traffic hobby app.
Came to ask a similar question, or rather, how plug and play are the different services? I'm often thinking of the use case of a hobby app where I might want to run a local database, and for example, using KMS might be overkill. Is that a use case you guys think about or not as much?
How do you feel Convox deals with the Hybrid approach? Of wanting to use a PaaS App container service, but keep the app dependencies like Cache, ElasticSearch DB hosted by AWS.
Does Convox continue to use hosted AWS services?
I like the idea of the App being containerised and that workflow, but I cannot convince myself that running DB/Cache in something like Convox is a good idea (vs Hosted in AWS).
> It seems naming things is still one of the hard things in Comp Sci: http://rack.github.io
I think rack is a pretty good name for something that is meant to be the infrastructure for running services. Not sure of the etymology for this project, but to me it conveys images of a server rack in a datacenter.
[+] [-] nzoschke|10 years ago|reply
A few important differences between Convox and other options in the space.
AWS only. We use lots of AWS services to piggy back on all the reliability AWS has baked in. For example we use DynamoDB to record all your builds because none of us want to manage a Postgres for record keeping.
Open source. The layer between you and your AWS account is open, transparent, and modifiable.
Simple. I want to remove as many moving parts as possible, not add a heavy middleware.
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|10 years ago|reply
Curious: what's your business model? I am starting to write a book about open source business models and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. Thanks!
[+] [-] nzoschke|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koolba|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nzoschke|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] educar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwmanning|10 years ago|reply
I'm happy to answer any questions you have about Rack or any of Convox's other offerings.
To join a discussion with our user community please join our Slack! https://invite.convox.com
[+] [-] shimon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bizzleDawg|10 years ago|reply
I've looked through a couple of the previous threads and didn't find much on this.
[+] [-] nzoschke|10 years ago|reply
* Simple
* Configures AWS resources uniformly run your app
* Uses Docker
Some advantages to using Convox instead of Elastic Beanstalk:
* More flexibility in the experience. Convox has a simpler API and CLI for end users.
* More flexibility in the infrastructure. We can pick and choose the best infrastructure components and constantly evolve.
* Less lock in. This is speculative but having a thin layer between you and AWS could help with portability.
[+] [-] avitzurel|10 years ago|reply
This is a level of abstraction above ECS, which Beanstalk uses behind the scenes for multi-container installations.
If you think about it, it's like Heroku for docker, you handle "apps", and the rest is handled by Rack.
This is how I understand it.
[+] [-] kolanos|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwmanning|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedmiston|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sciurus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dekz|10 years ago|reply
Does Convox continue to use hosted AWS services?
I like the idea of the App being containerised and that workflow, but I cannot convince myself that running DB/Cache in something like Convox is a good idea (vs Hosted in AWS).
Can you give your thoughts?
[+] [-] nzoschke|10 years ago|reply
We do not run dbs as containers other than for dev or testing.
'convox services add postgres' and 'convox services add redis' provisions RDS and Elasticache respectively.
[+] [-] ShaneOG|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] koolba|10 years ago|reply
I think rack is a pretty good name for something that is meant to be the infrastructure for running services. Not sure of the etymology for this project, but to me it conveys images of a server rack in a datacenter.
[+] [-] tomc1985|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hk__2|10 years ago|reply