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  3. Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps

Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps

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    • marcusquinnM Offline
      marcusquinnM Offline
      marcusquinn
      wrote on last edited by
      #1

      As we all know, there's often multiple apps performing the same function.

      From my experience, there's been just a handful of apps that actually ever gets used in daily work & personal life.

      Eg, for my business and clients, that's Vaultwarden, Privatebin, Nextcloud, EspoCRM, Ghost, Wordpress, Gitea, Drone, Grafana. You can run almost any business size and type with those. Perhaps adding Joplin Server, Redash or Metabase, and some of the other private apps we use for monitoring etc.

      I think a Staff Choice badge for the ones we find to be the best of the rest might help others in their evaluation priorities, and perhaps also help reduce the number of me-too apps for a function that are rarely used, but cost a disproportionate amount in maintenance time.

      a99c31bd-2c7e-4734-9083-485dc0fca6d7-image.png

      Maybe add a blue "verified" badge, since they are all the rage 🙂

      Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
      Development https://brandlight.org
      Life https://marcusquinn.com

      humptydumptyH 1 Reply Last reply
      5
      • marcusquinnM marcusquinn

        As we all know, there's often multiple apps performing the same function.

        From my experience, there's been just a handful of apps that actually ever gets used in daily work & personal life.

        Eg, for my business and clients, that's Vaultwarden, Privatebin, Nextcloud, EspoCRM, Ghost, Wordpress, Gitea, Drone, Grafana. You can run almost any business size and type with those. Perhaps adding Joplin Server, Redash or Metabase, and some of the other private apps we use for monitoring etc.

        I think a Staff Choice badge for the ones we find to be the best of the rest might help others in their evaluation priorities, and perhaps also help reduce the number of me-too apps for a function that are rarely used, but cost a disproportionate amount in maintenance time.

        a99c31bd-2c7e-4734-9083-485dc0fca6d7-image.png

        Maybe add a blue "verified" badge, since they are all the rage 🙂

        humptydumptyH Offline
        humptydumptyH Offline
        humptydumpty
        wrote on last edited by
        #2

        @marcusquinn Isn't this specific to each use-case? Maybe a "hot" or "popular" tag would be more fitting. For example, I was looking for the best way to sync my calenders and ended up using Nextcloud but many others recommended Radicale.

        marcusquinnM 1 Reply Last reply
        3
        • humptydumptyH humptydumpty

          @marcusquinn Isn't this specific to each use-case? Maybe a "hot" or "popular" tag would be more fitting. For example, I was looking for the best way to sync my calenders and ended up using Nextcloud but many others recommended Radicale.

          marcusquinnM Offline
          marcusquinnM Offline
          marcusquinn
          wrote on last edited by
          #3

          @humptydumpty I think "Staff Choice" or "Editor's Pick" is a well understood concept. It only means what it says. I don't know anyone that would want 3 x webmail apps as an example, first question for a newbie: which one's best? Maybe I'll try the one the platform developers also use.

          Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
          Development https://brandlight.org
          Life https://marcusquinn.com

          humptydumptyH L 2 Replies Last reply
          3
          • marcusquinnM marcusquinn

            @humptydumpty I think "Staff Choice" or "Editor's Pick" is a well understood concept. It only means what it says. I don't know anyone that would want 3 x webmail apps as an example, first question for a newbie: which one's best? Maybe I'll try the one the platform developers also use.

            humptydumptyH Offline
            humptydumptyH Offline
            humptydumpty
            wrote on last edited by
            #4

            @marcusquinn I agree with you there. I did exactly what you said until I settled on my current apps.

            1 Reply Last reply
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            • marcusquinnM marcusquinn

              @humptydumpty I think "Staff Choice" or "Editor's Pick" is a well understood concept. It only means what it says. I don't know anyone that would want 3 x webmail apps as an example, first question for a newbie: which one's best? Maybe I'll try the one the platform developers also use.

              L Offline
              L Offline
              LoudLemur
              wrote on last edited by LoudLemur
              #5

              @marcusquinn said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

              @humptydumpty I think "Staff Choice" or "Editor's Pick" is a well understood concept. It only means what it says. I don't know anyone that would want 3 x webmail apps as an example, first question for a newbie: which one's best? Maybe I'll try the one the platform developers also use.

              It is a nice idea.

              For email, I think I would pick SnappyMail. For forum software it is a bit more difficult, may be ... Discourse.

              1 Reply Last reply
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              • luckowL Offline
                luckowL Offline
                luckow
                translator
                wrote on last edited by
                #6

                Instead of adding a "Staff Choice" badge, imho we need a five star module and maybe comments like in the other app stores. That shows the actual usage of the apps in the world, rather than staff usage. But not open to the world (the Cloudron app store is not a directory like alternativeto.net) - only for users with an account for the Cloudron app store.
                But beware of the lifetime spent on moderation 🙂

                Pronouns: he/him | Primary language: German

                marcusquinnM jdaviescoatesJ 2 Replies Last reply
                5
                • luckowL luckow

                  Instead of adding a "Staff Choice" badge, imho we need a five star module and maybe comments like in the other app stores. That shows the actual usage of the apps in the world, rather than staff usage. But not open to the world (the Cloudron app store is not a directory like alternativeto.net) - only for users with an account for the Cloudron app store.
                  But beware of the lifetime spent on moderation 🙂

                  marcusquinnM Offline
                  marcusquinnM Offline
                  marcusquinn
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #7

                  @luckow Interesting ideas! I guess it might help to keep track of some KPIs on their source-code, eg: number of Stars on GitHub, Last Updated, Activity Graph.

                  I suppose a link to the source origin will show all of that though. I've always thought it would be handy to add that to the documentation links on each app, as well as their website.

                  Web Design https://www.evergreen.je
                  Development https://brandlight.org
                  Life https://marcusquinn.com

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • luckowL luckow

                    Instead of adding a "Staff Choice" badge, imho we need a five star module and maybe comments like in the other app stores. That shows the actual usage of the apps in the world, rather than staff usage. But not open to the world (the Cloudron app store is not a directory like alternativeto.net) - only for users with an account for the Cloudron app store.
                    But beware of the lifetime spent on moderation 🙂

                    jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                    jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                    jdaviescoates
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #8

                    @luckow said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                    That shows the actual usage of the apps in the world, rather than staff usage

                    Yeah, do @Staff have data on which apps are actually most used by Cloudron users?

                    I struggle to believe that it is really these which are marked as popular?

                    63971d76-372d-4758-8660-61c00756e9a1-image.png

                    But perhaps it is?

                    Also, I note that https://www.cloudron.io/store/index.html doesn't have a "Popular" section like the app store within Cloudron itself does.

                    We could also do this with polls or something to work out which app are most loved by Cloudron users (I guess this is what @luckow was getting at with five star rating stuff?)

                    I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

                    M 1 Reply Last reply
                    1
                    • jdaviescoatesJ jdaviescoates

                      @luckow said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                      That shows the actual usage of the apps in the world, rather than staff usage

                      Yeah, do @Staff have data on which apps are actually most used by Cloudron users?

                      I struggle to believe that it is really these which are marked as popular?

                      63971d76-372d-4758-8660-61c00756e9a1-image.png

                      But perhaps it is?

                      Also, I note that https://www.cloudron.io/store/index.html doesn't have a "Popular" section like the app store within Cloudron itself does.

                      We could also do this with polls or something to work out which app are most loved by Cloudron users (I guess this is what @luckow was getting at with five star rating stuff?)

                      M Offline
                      M Offline
                      msbt
                      App Dev
                      wrote on last edited by msbt
                      #9

                      well there's the api which shows ranking/installcount: https://api.cloudron.io/api/v1/apps - that could be used for some kind of popularity filter (which I'm doing on my site)

                      jdaviescoatesJ 1 Reply Last reply
                      2
                      • M msbt

                        well there's the api which shows ranking/installcount: https://api.cloudron.io/api/v1/apps - that could be used for some kind of popularity filter (which I'm doing on my site)

                        jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                        jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                        jdaviescoates
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #10

                        @msbt said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                        the api which shows ranking/installcount

                        Does that match up with the "popular" apps in the app store?

                        Care to share the ranking/ install count of the apps here? (I'm not familiar with the API). Thanks!

                        I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

                        jdaviescoatesJ 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • jdaviescoatesJ jdaviescoates

                          @msbt said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                          the api which shows ranking/installcount

                          Does that match up with the "popular" apps in the app store?

                          Care to share the ranking/ install count of the apps here? (I'm not familiar with the API). Thanks!

                          jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                          jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                          jdaviescoates
                          wrote on last edited by jdaviescoates
                          #11

                          Just browsing through and expanding stuff on https://api.cloudron.io/api/v1/apps it looks like the most popular 5 apps are:

                          1. Nextcloud (seem right)
                          2. Guacamole (find that hard to believe, also not in Popular)
                          3. WordPress (seems right).
                          4. RocketChat (could be)
                          5. OpenVPN (could be, I guess)

                          Apart from Guacamole this seems like the same list a "Popular"

                          I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

                          L 1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • jdaviescoatesJ jdaviescoates

                            Just browsing through and expanding stuff on https://api.cloudron.io/api/v1/apps it looks like the most popular 5 apps are:

                            1. Nextcloud (seem right)
                            2. Guacamole (find that hard to believe, also not in Popular)
                            3. WordPress (seems right).
                            4. RocketChat (could be)
                            5. OpenVPN (could be, I guess)

                            Apart from Guacamole this seems like the same list a "Popular"

                            L Offline
                            L Offline
                            LoudLemur
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #12

                            @jdaviescoates said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                            Guacamole

                            Thanks for doing that. I had a look through the API @msbt kindly linked and it would have been more enjoyable if the name of the application were alongside the InstallCount.

                            Anyway, now we know Nexcloud is so popular, lets ask why people are using it. How does it help?

                            jdaviescoatesJ 1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • L LoudLemur

                              @jdaviescoates said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                              Guacamole

                              Thanks for doing that. I had a look through the API @msbt kindly linked and it would have been more enjoyable if the name of the application were alongside the InstallCount.

                              Anyway, now we know Nexcloud is so popular, lets ask why people are using it. How does it help?

                              jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                              jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                              jdaviescoates
                              wrote on last edited by jdaviescoates
                              #13

                              @LoudLemur said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                              Anyway, now we know Nexcloud is so popular, lets ask why people are using it. How does it help?

                              Well, if you looks at things like:

                              https://stackshare.io/collaboration
                              https://stackshare.io/business_tools

                              You'll see that some of the most widely collaboration and business tools use are:

                              Google Workspace (primarily Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, but also Meet)
                              Slack
                              Trello

                              IMHO Nextcloud (with either OnlyOffice or Collabora Online for Docs, plus SnappyMail for email) is probably the best open source replacement for Google Workspace. Nextcloud Talk doesn't quite replace Meet, but it's great for small meetings, so almost does. See also Jitsi.

                              Also, Nextcloud Talk and Nextcloud Deck apps provide fairly decent replacements for Slack and Trello too (although see also Element, RocketChat, and Mattermost as other Slack replacements, and WeKan, Taiga, Vikunja and Kanboard as other Trello replacements).

                              (BTW, small thing @staff but I just noticed that is you search the app store for "tasks" WeKan doesn't come up, it should)

                              I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

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                              1
                              • perelinP Offline
                                perelinP Offline
                                perelin
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #14

                                Is this still talked about in 2025? I struggle myself to find "the best" or at least "the most popular" option in the App Store. @marcusquinn idea to use Github Stars mirrors my manual approach. Should be straight forward to implement with the github API given a known repo URL.

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                1
                                • girishG Offline
                                  girishG Offline
                                  girish
                                  Staff
                                  wrote on last edited by girish
                                  #15

                                  Think I mentioned elsewhere but "Popular" is just a hardcoded list of apps 🙂 It's not some dynamic list.

                                  Personally (not speaking for Cloudron), I am reluctant to offer any app recommendations even outside the App Store tbh. What if we recommend something and the business model of upstream changes? These days this is quite a common occurrence. Things get abandoned, change license, change business model etc. I don't want to be part of the decision-making of our end user. This puts the burden on end user to read more about the upstream project and the company behind it, and in some ways I want it to be that way (mostly, because I don't have any additional insights either).

                                  jdaviescoatesJ scookeS perelinP 3 Replies Last reply
                                  1
                                  • girishG girish

                                    Think I mentioned elsewhere but "Popular" is just a hardcoded list of apps 🙂 It's not some dynamic list.

                                    Personally (not speaking for Cloudron), I am reluctant to offer any app recommendations even outside the App Store tbh. What if we recommend something and the business model of upstream changes? These days this is quite a common occurrence. Things get abandoned, change license, change business model etc. I don't want to be part of the decision-making of our end user. This puts the burden on end user to read more about the upstream project and the company behind it, and in some ways I want it to be that way (mostly, because I don't have any additional insights either).

                                    jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                                    jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                                    jdaviescoates
                                    wrote on last edited by jdaviescoates
                                    #16

                                    @girish said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                                    Think I mentioned elsewhere but "Popular" is just a hardcoded list of apps 🙂 It's not some dynamic list.

                                    Perhaps just making it dynamic would go some way towards addressing this need?

                                    I get why you don't want to recommend stuff, but can't see any harm in users knowing what's actually popular

                                    I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    1
                                    • perelinP Offline
                                      perelinP Offline
                                      perelin
                                      wrote on last edited by perelin
                                      #17

                                      @girish fair points. And I agree "Recommended/Popular" is difficult for all the reasons you mentioned. Something like GH stars imo just gives a datapoint for exploration to the users and still leaves the choice to them. (A bit like IMDB ratings on movies sites :)) In my experience they are a strong indicator of what to expect from a project in terms of maturity, usability and support.

                                      jdaviescoatesJ 1 Reply Last reply
                                      2
                                      • girishG girish

                                        Think I mentioned elsewhere but "Popular" is just a hardcoded list of apps 🙂 It's not some dynamic list.

                                        Personally (not speaking for Cloudron), I am reluctant to offer any app recommendations even outside the App Store tbh. What if we recommend something and the business model of upstream changes? These days this is quite a common occurrence. Things get abandoned, change license, change business model etc. I don't want to be part of the decision-making of our end user. This puts the burden on end user to read more about the upstream project and the company behind it, and in some ways I want it to be that way (mostly, because I don't have any additional insights either).

                                        scookeS Offline
                                        scookeS Offline
                                        scooke
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #18

                                        @girish said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                                        I don't want to be part of the decision-making of our end user.

                                        Totally get this. You're already part of the opportunity-making for end users like me. This is why I stick around, you and the team really have some good heads on your shoulders.

                                        A life lived in fear is a life half-lived

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                                        • perelinP perelin

                                          @girish fair points. And I agree "Recommended/Popular" is difficult for all the reasons you mentioned. Something like GH stars imo just gives a datapoint for exploration to the users and still leaves the choice to them. (A bit like IMDB ratings on movies sites :)) In my experience they are a strong indicator of what to expect from a project in terms of maturity, usability and support.

                                          jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                                          jdaviescoatesJ Offline
                                          jdaviescoates
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #19

                                          @perelin said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                                          Something like GH stars

                                          Couldn't hurt to suck such data in and display it when available (much like https://selfhosted.libhunt.com/categories does with both GH stars and activity), if possible.

                                          Of course there are an increasing number of great apps that aren't on GH too though.

                                          I use Cloudron with Gandi & Hetzner

                                          1 Reply Last reply
                                          0
                                          • girishG girish

                                            Think I mentioned elsewhere but "Popular" is just a hardcoded list of apps 🙂 It's not some dynamic list.

                                            Personally (not speaking for Cloudron), I am reluctant to offer any app recommendations even outside the App Store tbh. What if we recommend something and the business model of upstream changes? These days this is quite a common occurrence. Things get abandoned, change license, change business model etc. I don't want to be part of the decision-making of our end user. This puts the burden on end user to read more about the upstream project and the company behind it, and in some ways I want it to be that way (mostly, because I don't have any additional insights either).

                                            perelinP Offline
                                            perelinP Offline
                                            perelin
                                            wrote on last edited by
                                            #20

                                            @girish said in Add a"Staff Choice" badge/filter to App Store apps:

                                            I don't want to be part of the decision-making of our end user.

                                            First off: im new here. Just discovered Cloudron a few weeks ago. Super impressed! And quite a nice community. And here goes my point: You are already part of the decision making. Or at least together with the community that votes for packages to get included. The App Store is already a curated selection 🙂 But I can see the direction you are coming from. I mean in the end a feature like GH Stars would safe me 2 clicks, so I would say its definitely a nice-to-have and nothing more.

                                            Thanks for the good work!

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