Scaffold
Your AWS infrastructure defined as code, in seconds.
After releasing the first open-source version of Scaffold, 22 days ago, we already have 24 stars on GitHub.
Scaffold is a framework to create a complete AWS infrastructure, defined as code, in seconds.
We also have added a new infrastructure to our catalog.
It's a docker-based infrastructure, serverless, with CI/CD, auto-scaling, zero downtime deployment, SSL, load-balancing and high availability.
You could create it in less than one minute in your own AWS account.
After releasing the first open-source version of Scaffold, 5 days ago, we already have 10 stars on GitHub.
Scaffold is a framework to create a complete AWS infrastructure, defined as code, in seconds.
It may seems ridiculous to others but it's more than all the open-source projects that I have released by the past. 😂
-
3
This is a dope idea, 10 stars isn't bad but I think you can easily boost that. Post it on relevant subreddits /r/aws /r/devops and you should see some interest there. From there I would post on hackernews with a Show HN post. I did all of this a few years ago for a k8s related product I built and we hit 1K+ stars in a week!
Edit: I didn't mean for this to come across as braggart, or to underplay your accomplishments. I just think you built a really cool product and deserve some more love :)
-
1
Thanks you very much!
WOW! 1K in one week, it's impressive! Congrats!
I've tried three times to post it as Show HN with respectively 4 points, 19 points and 5 points. Not enough to reach the front page. Do you have any tips? Best time to post?
Reddit has worked better. +60 points on the side-project subreddit. I will try to post it on the AWS and DevOps one. Thanks!
Can I ask you the link to your K8s project? Seems interesting! :D
-
2
Sadly, I don't know when the best time to post. HN feels so random on whether or not an article will get picked up. I know the more points you have the higher the chance, but I'm still not certain on how it works.
Yeah sadly the project kind of died when the startup did, but here's a link to it:
https://github.com/jeremykross/konstellate
-
-
-
2
Very nice product page!
Can you tell me what tech stack you are using there and where are you hosting? Are you using a template or is this custom design, specifically the docs/catalog section?
-
2
Thanks! Yes, sure.
I've used Node.js, Express.js, MongoDB, Bootstrap and JQuery. It's hosted on AWS Fargate (AWS DocumentDB for the database).
The design is handmade. It's very simple really.
It's just the Bootstrap components, with a font (Inter https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Inter) and a blue/grey color scheme.
The documentation uses only two columns "col-lg-3" and "col-lg-9" for the layout.
Do not hesitate to tell me if you need any help!
-
1
Good info, thank you @jeremylevy!
-
-
-
2
You will kill it!
This is excellent product idea, keep working on it. Indeed it's of great help to people like me who work with AWS often.
I loved it.-
1
Wow! Thank you so much!
It means so much to me! 🙏
-
-
2
Check some "awesome-aws" lists on github, and add your app to them.
-
1
Good idea, thanks! I did not think to do this!
-
You work for months on your project, submit it to HN/REDDIT/X, and voilà, you're featured on the front page.
Everything seems to work as planned... until the dream turns into a nightmare:
People tell you that your landing page sucks and doesn't convey what you do.
People are reaching out to you on Twitter to tell you that the pricing is ridiculous and that no one will ever pay this outrageous price.
People yell at you because they need to register to check it out.
You've lost months (years?) of your life working on your project. Seeing people destroying it is hard. Very hard.
I needed to take some days off.
Once I've swallowed the pill, I needed to acknowledge that receiving harsh feedback is hard. For everyone. But harsh doesn't mean false.
Following the recurring feedback that I've received, I decided to change everything.
Today, Revolv has become Scaffold an open-source company.
We've changed everything from pricing to visual identity, and we're now featured on Reddit with more than 60 upvotes (our previous attempt with Revolv has made 0).
https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/
Startups are hard. Never give up.
-
1
I read this as: “Got some solid gold feedback from some people who cared enough to yell”
Absolutely awesome!!
After weeks spent writing blog posts and talking to users on Twitter, HN and Reddit, I've been more than happy to see a first architecture created on Revolv.
Sadly for us, this architecture was created by one of our competitor that was there to test our application.
The architecture has been deleted some minutes later.
-
6
I have a competitor signed up on my service, and now he has published on PH and HN with instant success, while I'm still in dev stage :)
-
4
As an aside - just looked at your landing page, and I am not clear on what you do. I might be a potential customer.
What I am trying to figure out is:
- Do you look at our actual cloud deployments and then turn that into an architecture diagram?
- Or is this a tool for creating an architecture diagram? And maybe pushing that into the cloud, a bit like a visual version of Terraform?
- Something else?
I tried looking through for FAQ but none the wiser.
I reckon a 3 step "Step 1 - connect to AWS" "Step 2 - XYZ" "Step 3- NOW YOU HAVE ABC" would be useful. But there might be other ways to communicate it.
-
1
Hey!
Thanks, thanks, thanks for this insightful comment! 🙏
It's a first release. We're listening to feedback to improve our landing page :).
Revolv automates the cloud architecture creation process. It's like Terraform with the user-friendliness of Heroku.
We've written a blog post if you want to check it out:
What do you think?
-
2
Hi Jeremy, it is a brilliant idea.
My biggest objections though are:
- No Azure support (but that is coming)
- Relying on any cloud service for CI is a risk. I've seen Travis our of action for 24h and it wasn't fun for example. Therefore a new startup for CI makes me uneasy.
- You have a good point about lock in, but if you are based on something else, like Terraform, it would be nice to be about to get those configs out of your system once finished.
If you decouple the "choosing an architecture" from the "here is the source code to deploy that" and make the second part more open I think it would be less scary to use.
But I won't want to just run off with the source code and stop my subscription because it is handy to have a simple interface to configure and reconfigure cloud services.
-
1
Thank you so much! Your comments are always very insightful.
As you have said, support for Azure and GCP is coming soon.
For the CI part, we do not do this ourselves. What we do instead is adding missing features to the CI service offered by cloud providers.
As an example, AWS CodePipeline doesn't have support for multi-branch. So, if you want to test/build on each PR you need to find a way to clone and run your pipeline. Revolv do this for you.
We also offer additional features, like a new environment provisioned per GitHub PR with setup/teardown to ease the QA process or the integration with GitHub Check Runs.
For the export part, it's something we've been thinking about for a while. Which format will best suit your needs? Terraform HCL? JSON? Pulumi?
Following the feedback we've received from you and other users, we've taken the decision to revamp our landing page by focusing on what we do now and not what we want to do in the future.
Currently, we only have one architecture available to deploy a Docker container on AWS. So we will start from that and expand later.
What do you think? Do you think this landing page better explain what we do at Revolv?
For reference, the old landing page:
https://d8ruukhzq9aj1.cloudfront.net/56e1509d9517e7598d5b27a71f6f90f017f4d1f0/thumbnail_homepage.png
https://d8ruukhzq9aj1.cloudfront.net/56e1509d9517e7598d5b27a71f6f90f017f4d1f0/thumbnail_features.png
https://d8ruukhzq9aj1.cloudfront.net/56e1509d9517e7598d5b27a71f6f90f017f4d1f0/thumbnail_pricing.png
Thanks again!
-
1
Oh yeah. much better.
I would make the headline say multiple containers (if that is possible) as normally people have more than one. I'd make it YOUR:
Deploy your Docker containers on AWS, in seconds
Also - that CDN/DB stuff is a big benefit. I think it is worth changing that headline from:
How does this work?
To
Need a database? A CDN?
Then in that area mention what you do after "That's It" E.g. "That's it - we will create the database and CDN for you, and keep it up to date with every deployment".
Assuming that's what you do :-)
-
-
-
2
No need to cry. It happens...learn about them as-well and see how you can compete favourably.
-
2
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
-
-
1
No big deal. That's time they could have been spending focusing on their customers that they spent focusing on you. And if your terms of use allow it, now you can say "even our competitors use us =) "
-
1
That the competitor has time to play with your product rather than being completely focused on working with their customers and improving their product is a negative sign about them.
Not sure if you've already done this, but it could be worth exploring creating reference cases. E.g. clear step-by-step guides on how to get a very specific use case up and running quickly. AWS does a good job of this and could be a good place to look for examples.
One example relevant to me right now is Auth0. I was looking for auth options that fulfill some use cases and feature requirements. They give a clear step-by-step guide of how to achieve what I'm trying to do. And now, to their benefit, they've become part of my time and work estimates in discussions with peers.
-
1
Off-topic: I'm really impressed that it's something you'd talk about freely. I guess Indie Hacker has a culture that encourages people to share things other than "successes". Love it.
-
1
They know your current product but not your roadmap. So why worry about it? Go ahead with your product launch and win your customers.
Learn from your competitors feedback and attract their customers as well. Simple 🙂
-
2
This comment was deleted 5 years ago
-
2
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
-
1
Good catch! Thanks you! I've updated it!
-
-
1
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
Hi there,
After having released Revolv weeks ago, I'm working on a series of articles that will explain how to deploy the most famous web frameworks on the most famous cloud providers.
The first one is about deploying a Symfony 4 / 5 application on a production-ready architecture on AWS.
Hi there,
After months of hard work, the first release of Revolv is finally here! 🎉
Revolv aims to solve a critical problem for all new projects: creating a complete cloud architecture on AWS, GCP or Azure, in seconds.
For this release, we’ve created a docker-based architecture, with CI/CD, auto-scaling, zero downtime deployment, SSL, load-balancing, high availability and a data store (MongoDB, PgSQL or MySQL).
You will be able to create this architecture on your own AWS account, in less than one minute.
Try it out and tell us what you think!
Best,
Jeremy
Just started the promotion of my landing page on Ship.
I'm testing different versions, starting with:
"Hi, I'm Jérémy 👋
I'm building Revolv to automate cloud architecture creation.
Revolv aims to solve a critical problem for all new projects: Creating a complete cloud architecture on AWS, GCP or Azure, in seconds."
Just finished to write all integration and unit tests for the first version of Revolv.
Test Suites: 47 passed, 47 total
Tests: 418 passed, 418 total
Snapshots: 0 total
Time: 206.404s
Ran all test suites.
I think having tests for an MVP depend on the type of project and your users "bug tolerance".
Writing all these tests have certainly delayed launch by days but I don't want to take the risk that my users encounter bugs during architecture creation (or deployment).
-
1
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
-
1
Hey Ashley!
Personally, I think it depends on the project type. Revolv automates cloud architecture creation.
If there is a bug during architecture creation, for example, you could have some resources created on your AWS/GCP/Azure account that you will need to delete one by one, manually.
In my opinion this type of bugs could erode confidence in a product.
-
1
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
-
1
Thanks!
I hope to be able to release it in a few days/weeks :-).
I created an upcoming page if you want to get early access: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/revolv-2
-
-
-
Just finished the creation of the first architecture!
It's a docker-based architecture with CI/CD, auto-scaling, SSL (with auto-renewal), load-balancing and zero downtime deployment.
You will also be able to add a data store (MySQL, PGSQL or MongoDB).
It will only be available on AWS at this time (using Fargate, RDS, DocumentDB, CodeBuild and CodePipeline).
You will be able to create this architecture on your own account, in seconds!
Stay tuned!
-
2
Hey Jérémy! Greetings from pas très loin de chez toi!
Questions: what's your distribution channel? Do you already have customers?
Cheers
-
1
Hey Conrad! Happy to talk to a french founder! 🇫🇷
To answer your questions:
- I plan to follow a bottom-up approach for distribution:
- Targeting makers and developers on IH, HN, PH and Reddit.
- Writing blog posts on Medium, starting with subjects like "How to deploy a complete architecture to host your Symfony/Laravel/Express.js/RoR/whatever app on AWS" for example.
- Making partnerships with local startups incubator and online platforms by offering price reduction.
- I don't have any customers yet, given that Revolv is not released :).
Cheers
-
2
Thanks for your answer!
Nice plan already, this should give you some traffic.
If I take the position of a potential customer (which I could be, obviously!), the main questions I would ask myself are:
- How much would it cost me to migrate to your solution? (time, money, downtime)
- How can I trust your system?
- What do I gain from not building this myself? (this is the worst! But as a developer selling to developers, this is a big issue you have to think about)
Do you already have potential customers?
-
1
Thanks for all these interesting questions!
- How much would it cost me to migrate to your solution? (time, money, downtime)
It depends on the type of architecture you will choose.
For a static website for example, a few minutes.
If you have a web and a database server, you will need a few minutes for architecture creation and the time to migrate your data from your database.
For pricing, we will take a percentage of your AWS bill for the architectures used.
- How can I trust your system?
First, I think trust takes time to build.
When GitHub or GitLab were released, for example, you have to trust an unknown company to store your more important asset: your source code.
I think you have to prove yourself one action after another.
But, in more details:
Yes, you'll have to give us an AWS access key to access your account, but:
-
You could log all API calls made by using AWS CloudTrail.
-
You could revoke the access key at any time directly in your AWS account.
-
There is zero lock-in. We only use raw services (like AWS Fargate or AWS CodeBuild) so you can unsubscribe at anytime. Your architectures will remain perfectly usable. You will only lose access to the advanced features offered by Revolv (GitHub/Slack integration, deploy monitoring and rollback, Healthcheck, Notifications...).
- What do I gain from not building this myself?
You'll gain time (obviously), the convenience to create, replicate (for dev env for example) or destroy a complete architecture in one click and the advanced features that Revolv offers you (GitHub/Slack integration, deploy monitoring and rollback, Healthcheck, Notifications...)
- Do you already have potential customers?
Yes! Many clients that I've worked with as a freelance struggle to create an entire architecture on cloud platforms.
-
2
Interesting answers! I actually have zero experience with deployment on AWS (or any scalable architecture in fact) and I'm quite interested by what this solution can offer.
How far are you from a first release?
-
1
Thanks!
I hope to be able to release it in a few weeks.
You can subscribe here if you want to get early access : https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/revolv-2
-
-
Today, I was faced with another client that struggle to create a working cloud architecture on AWS.
I've decided to create a website that will fix that, Revolv.
Revolv aims to let anyone create a complete cloud architecture on AWS, GCP or Azure in seconds.
11 Comments
Interesting project - but it's unclear to me why not just have some tf files per scaffold and then share them as an archive? Would also be nice to see a lot more scaffolds. Another nice feature would be to help with cost estimation.
Hey!
Thanks for your reply! 😀
We've wrapped Terraform and the CDKTF to offer additional features like environment and sandboxes.
We're also working on an "add-ons" feature that will let you add databases, cache and so on, to an infrastructure, in one command.
Maybe I'm missing something here but given that all infrastructures are hosted on GitHub you could always "clone" them if you only want the Terraform code, no?
Cost estimation is something that we want to do. We give an estimation on each infrastructure page, but it's something that is very difficult to do, with many parameters that need to be taken into account.
We're also working on adding many more infrastructure and add-ons. 😀
Not sure I can follow. When you use the CDKTF, there are no tf files that are on github, are there? I was just wondering why you chose to use another layer. But I guess you answered that. You want to add features that you feel are not easy or composable enough with just tf files, correct?
How do you see the project in comparison to e.g. the Terraform enterprise offering?
Aah, I'm sorry! I did not understand what you mean. My bad.
The CDKTF has been released by HashiCorp, it allows you to define infrastructure using TypeScript and Python instead of HCL:
https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/terraform/cdktf
In the past, when you needed to work with Terraform, you had to choose between HCL (*.tf files) or JSON.
Now, you could also write Terraform code using Python or TypeScript.
It's just another way of defining an infrastructure. 😀
My vision for Scaffold is more similar to the one that power Heroku.
Letting users create a complete infrastructure in seconds, and offering additional features like "preview urls", "env vars management", infrastructure pipelines, and so on.
"The user-friendliness of Heroku with the power of AWS, GCP or Azure." 😊
Really cool! I would love to see how you apply this infrastructure to a project. For example, I have a nextjs front-end + django API that I am interested in deploying to a very similar infra. Does this infra support multiple docker containers? one for a web app and one for an API.
Happy to share my docker setup if you need an example.
Hey!
Our docker infrastructure doesn't support multiple docker containers but we have another one that is perfectly suited to host a static website 😃: https://scaffold.sh/docs/infrastructures/aws/static-website
What you could do is to create two infrastructures. One for the frontend part and another one for the backend.
The sole requirement is that your projects need to be hosted on GitHub.
Let me know if you need any help, I will be more than happy to help you!
Yep - we are on Github. So that's ok. However, we use NextJS and are currently on Vercel. It's using some lambda functions for certain pages, so I think due to SSR features, we need a node server.
Yea, would love some help. If I can get some pointers, I would love to apply this for a client's app I have in mind - that's already hosted on AWS + Vercel, but we are looking to move to fully AWS and have it all hosted there. I have been looking at Fargate, but this looks like a great way to manage it all.
What's the best way to connect?
Aah yes, I've forgotten that NextJS uses lambda for SSR.
Do you use Slack? I could send you an invitation in a private channel to chat?
Yep I use slack!
Great!
Could you send me an email at jeremy.levy@scaffold.sh . I'll send you an invite to join a private channel.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago
Ah ah, merci ! 😀