A list of Cloudron-like services/ competitors

[jdaviescoates]

@necrevistonnezr said in A list of Cloudron-like services/ competitors:

Do any of these have a working mail server built-in like Cloudron has? For me, that is one of the USP.

Good question!

[scooke]

@necrevistonnezr Well, I went through the list for you. Some of them I could have told you immediately because I use them, or tried them. Suffice to say, ONLY https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Manual/Email has the option for built-in email. The rest have no email options, or offer email clients. At best, a few offer the usage of an SMTP server but it is one you must have already set up outside of the environment (like Mailgun, Sendgrid, etc.).

ONLY Cloudron mentions email on it's front page, and only Cloudron then makes its setup so seamless and easy as to almost make a user not even realize there is email! And then ONLY Cloudron offers email clients with which one can use this built-in email service.

[fbartels]

Found another one, from their description it's an interesting approach: https://selfprivacy.org/

[robi]

@fbartels cool! Seems they like Cloudron and list it on their site.. could use a rephrase though as source "available".
https://selfprivacy.org/docs/about-us/team/

[scooke]

@fbartels But they need us to use two servers?? One for services, one for DNS. And their site https://selfprivacy.org/docs/getting-started/, for me at least, doesn't actually tell me what I'm installing. But elsewhere they reference cd /etc/nixos so I guess it is based on nixos? Then there isa Linux Desktop app... is this what I install on the server?? Their instructions list

Generating tokens
Installation
Connecting to the services

but then the text skips the "Installation"... forget it! Cloudron has spoiled me for it's clarity of purpose and instruction.

[timconsidine]

@scooke said in A list of Cloudron-like services/ competitors:

Cloudron has spoiled me for it's clarity of purpose and instruction

For me too
I've looked at and tried out Dokku, CapRover, CosmosServer, Coolify, Yunohost, Sandstorm.
They each have their good points.
But overall, none come close to Cloudron as a reliable PaaS deployment.
Trying to summon the motivation to try EasyPanel, but the nagging voice in my head keeps saying "but why bother? time is precious".

[fbartels]

@scooke said in A list of Cloudron-like services/ competitors:

Cloudron has spoiled me

One of the big selling points for me too.

The way i understood their model is that you install an app on your phone (there is also a desktop app if you prefer this). And this app then provisions a server at hetzner that is installed and configured through nix.

[adison]

@timconsidine i'll admit, despite the problems i had with it, it is pretty decent. without it i wouldn't be able to deploy my website, not to mention securely.

[adison]

in fact, if i'm bein honest, i never had a website untill cloudron came around. i had no priar experience in html. we went with linode wordpress, and that had close to no security configurations. not to mention, it didn't have any hsts/default ssl. when i started using cloudron, i noticed a big differents. i had hsts, ssl, everything basically. it seams to do better than linode marketplace

[scooke]

@timconsidine said in A list of Cloudron-like services/ competitors:

Trying to summon the motivation to try EasyPanel, but the nagging voice in my head keeps saying "but why bother? time is precious".

FWIW, I found it very easy to setup. It splits things up by having the user make a Project. Then, within the Project one can add Services (primarily DBs, but also just the name for a custom App), or, you can use Templates to install a common app from a list of 242. TWO HUNDRED FORTY-TWO. Since my own coding chops are low, I opt for the Templates, and use it primarily for the Rotki app, but also the usual WP, Ghost, etc.

One thing I like about it is a page wide Dashboard which gives basic info. For me, it is often the exact info I'm curious about, so it is handy (you gotta pay to see more).

[adison]

y'know, i'm thinking of posting a review of cloudron to my personal website. i actually once even tryed to get a sponcership with them because i liked what they were doing, and i never had the ability to really do anything like setup a website untill i found cloudron. in facgt, they actually power about 95% of my business and allows them to run. yeah we have some non cloudron services, but cloudron takes cair of about 95% of my business. i do remember my media guy who i won't mention actually having a referral link to his video (it was my link) in a video he did because, y'know, i thought, why not give the viewers a chance to explore cloudron, so i created a referral link. i might go ahead and do that when i make my cloudron review for my website

[jdaviescoates]

@adison yeah, I haven't actually paid for Cloudron for ages now because I've referred so many people! (although I need to refer some more as my credits balance is beginning to get low!)

[timconsidine]

@scooke despite my earlier comment, I did try Easypanel.
Yes, easy to setup, and 3 apps free.

Yes a large library of existing templates, but the ones that would interest me are already on Cloudron.
Interesting though that they have Langchain and Flowise

The stand-out feature is the ability to deploy straight from a Github repo (remember though to choose Nixpack as deploy methiod - not entirely clear).
Worked perfectly with one that I tested (Libreddit), not so well with another.

And Heroku package support, although I haven't tried that.

Interesting but doesn't displace Cloudron for me.

[adison]

@jdaviescoates aw. yeah, i'm gonna do my review on cloudron sometime today.

[adison]

kinda deserves it.
without cloudron, i wouldn't have a business, and i wouldn't have sutch an online presence. i wouldn't have any of that stuf.
not even jokin. i never had an online website, or could never even run a sefitient online business untill i had cloudron.

[adison]

i just made a reviw of this on my website.
https://adison.blindsoft.net/a-review-of-cloudron/

[jdaviescoates]

@adison I'd update your blog post to make the first link to Cloudron your referral link too if I were you

[nebulon]

@adison nice blog post! Regarding the missing button labels, I guess those are the ones which only have an icon and no text? If so, what's the best way to add the label information to the code for blind people?

[adison]

@nebulon honestly, i would put something like, (domain here) manage, for the lable so that its labled

[nebulon]

We usually put text labels in buttons where there is enough space. Otherwise we show an icon alone and a tooltip. I guess those button should have the aria-label attribute set? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA/Attributes/aria-label