Sandstorm Blog
blog.sandstorm.io · Company blog · on HN since 2014
The Sandstorm team writes about their platform for self-hosting open source web apps, plus security and hosting decisions.
What HN saysCommenters link it to explain Sandstorm's goals, like federated hosting and app demo buttons, and the Oasis hosting price of $6 a month.
26HN people shared it
14linked it in comments
23stories submitted
1.5Kstory points
11 years agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Open Source Web Apps Aren't Viable; Let's Fix That8 people · 42 points · first shared 2014 · 3 comments on HN
- 2Is curl|bash insecure?3 people · 155 points · first shared 2015 · 160 comments on HN
- 3Why doesn't Sandstorm just run Docker apps?3 people · 122 points · first shared 2014 · 27 comments on HN
- 4Sandstorm Oasis hosting open beta and App Market2 people · 170 points · first shared 2015 · 75 comments on HN
- 5Sandstorm raises $1.3M, paying forward crowdfunds2 people · 104 points · first shared 2015 · 9 comments on HN
- 6Free, automated SSL certificates for Sandstorm self-hosters2 people · 80 points · first shared 2015 · 19 comments on HN
- 7Should apps get network access by default? Android vs. Sandstorm2 people · 8 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 8Mailpile now supported on Sandstorm2 people · 4 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 92015 02 06 app demo2 people · first shared 2015
- 102014 05 12 easy port2 people · first shared 2014
- 112014 12 15 capnproto 0.52 people · first shared 2015
- 12Remotely send Chrome and Node.js into infinite loops via OS X kernel bug1 people · 334 points · first shared 2015 · 74 comments on HN
- 13Is it ASCII or Protobuf? The importance of types in cryptographic signatures1 people · 156 points · first shared 2015 · 33 comments on HN
- 14Apache Wave on Sandstorm.io1 people · 142 points · first shared 2014 · 45 comments on HN
- 15Sandcats.io: free dynamic DNS for Sandstorm users1 people · 114 points · first shared 2015 · 18 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
ocdtrekkie · 2015-05-06
Recommendation: Try the demo, it'll take you less than ten seconds.
Also, they have a whole blog on that subject: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require…
paulproteus · 2015-05-01
One other possibly-cool thing is that any open source web app, when packaged for Sandstorm, can get a "Try it now" button of your own. That's what I explain at https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html but I figure it's worth stating clearly here in a comment, to save people a click.
kasbah · 2015-08-31
Looks like it will be 6$/mo: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-08-31-oasis-beta-launch.html
rektide · 2015-08-28
Cap'n'Proto (& by extension Sandstorm) very much intends to allow references (capabilities) to be passed around, which is in direct conflict with the "#1 and in bold" on this list, gRPC being "first-order", which I think the author is saying means that systems have to marshal all the data to communicate.
This is discussed- in relation to Sandstorm- in a Sandstorm blog post dating from last December. Other notables- the post mentions CORBA explicitly, and it discusses persisting capabilities (anti "First Class" objects extreme if I'm reading OP right).
https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-12-15-capnproto-0.5.html
kentonv · 2015-08-26
Thanks for coming to the meetup.
Making it easier to run open source apps really is the reason I started this project, not marketing.
(Everything I wrote in this blog post is actually what I think: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require…
dwrensha · 2015-02-22
Try it here: https://demo.sandstorm.io/appdemo/zx9d3pt0fjh4uqrprjftgpqfwgzp6y2ena60…
Read about it here: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-01-21-gitweb-and-gitlab.html
cben · 2015-02-11
More details: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require…
The central point (IMO) was economical: self-hosting frees developer from expenses. Trivial installation is just a pre-requisite for self-hosting to be acceptable.
ar-jan · 2015-02-07
I wonder if it would make sense to package a kind of "standard" version of the app, with the most-used / most important extensions, content types and whatever configured, as a Sandstorm [0] app. That way you could even make the "needs to by set up by a programmer" part optional, and target a larger user base. And you'd have a demo instance right away! [1]
[0] https://sandstorm.io/
[1] https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html
qiqing · 2015-01-30
We use the same Linux kernel features that Docker uses, but we use them directly. Here's a deeper explanation:
https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-08-19-why-not-run-docker-apps.html
fiatjaf · 2014-11-13
That's why everybody needs Sandstorm: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require…
zz1 · 2014-08-26
Or maybe the reason why nothing like oldversion.com exists ofr web apps is something else. Like:
* Apps are update because of security fixes.
* Open source web apps aren't viable[1]
[1] https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require…
avdempsey · 2014-08-21
Wave wasn't just laggy, it was frequently down. All sorts of apps with scaling issues can work better with the Sandstorm model. The whole Sandstorm idea really started clicking for me when I read one of their earlier posts on motivations: https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-21-open-source-web-apps-require…
That made me a backer.
e12e · 2015-05-10
How is that any different from Hotmail or Yahoo? (Web)mail as a service is about as old as http, smtp and imap. Hotmail even was a cool startup runnning on all FreeBSD before MS bought them up...
I don't think it makes sense to compare X as a service, to implementing X as a service. Of course it is a bit of a hassle to set up email. But it's not really that hard: the hardest part is probably setting up SSL certs. Now, if you want to complicate things with spf/dkim, anti-virus and greylisting -- things do get a little complicated.
Personally I think spf is strange band-aid, and luckily I get bye quite well with just greylisting against spam (most spam I get is actually to a throw-away address that got leaked in the Adobe/Macromedia hack: yay site-specific email address!).
This here, is an example of what I mean:
https://scaron.info/technology/debian-mail-postfix-dovecot.html
It's not exactly rocket science[1] for someone that is able to set up a secure server with password login disabled and only regular-user login via ssh keys -- which I consider the minimum for any internet-facing system unless you have a very special use-case, and a really good plan.
Now, if you can't set up a server -- you can't set up a server. I'm not saying we shouldn't make it easer -- eg:
https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-07-07-mailpile.html
or:
https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2014-08-11-roundcube.html
(Note, these both rely on sandstorm.io handling incomming smtp, as far as I can tell. At…