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Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#21

Post by pzaich »

phoenix24 wrote: post #5
bpicolo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's room for more than one player in the market here, it's a super important sort of tool where the open source versions are all pretty mediocre. OSS solutions tend to be statically configured, which non-engineers don't tend to have access or ability to configure. That's not to say you couldn't OSS something here, but it'd be a real effort to host.

what are the open-source alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?

My company (Checkr YC14) has also open-sourced our internal feature flagging microservice named Flagr (Golang).

https://github.com/checkr/flagr

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#22

Post by WingH »

alviny wrote: post #13
lquist wrote: post #7

I really like the product (and may use it!), but the landing page is very confusing. You get to the meat of the issue in your HN comment, but I see very little of that on the landing page.

Thank you - that's helpful feedback. We'll improve the marketing page with some more details in the next iteration.

A good example is this image in your homepage: https://www.airshiphq.com/dist/static/media/control-targetin...

This image serves absolutely no useful purpose (What is it?). It would've been much useful to see a screenshot of the product where you could set feature flags to at least give us an idea on what your product does.

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#23

Post by runako »

Congrats on the launch!

You're probably already aware, but if not here's a heads-up that there's a company called Urban Airship that is in a related space (and based on what they do, your space could be in their sights). Just something to think about.

Good luck!

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#24

Post by mritchie712 »

petetnt wrote: post #14

While I'd love to test out Airship, not being able to do that without signing up is pretty much a non-starter for me. When I say pretty much, I can often be persuaded with having at least the documentation available without signing up. For example Logrocket ( https://logrocket.com/ ) needs signing up, but the documentation is all there and I can immediately see the effects it will have on my app if applied.

How about a video that shows what the actual product looks like and does? That usually works for me and I prefer it to flashy videos that don't even show the real product in action.

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#26

Post by jpochtar »

avinashjdsouza wrote: post #18
avinashjdsouza wrote: post #12

SDK-only deployment or do you have an API that we can plug into a webapp? Wasn't mentioned too clearly on the site.

Also, colour me dense but I'm a marketer/PM and I can barely understand what's on the landing page. And there's no way that sales needs feature flagging. I know it's early days but maybe slightly simpler copy where you tell me what feature flagging actually is? On the flip side, I learned something pretty cool today! :-)

Sales can use feature flags to enable secret features for a customer they’re talking to. For example to demo a not-yet-shipped feature. They can use a feature flag to mark a customer as “enterprise” so they get a different version of the product. Overall, I’ve found it useful for customizing my product for the person I’m in person or on the phone with, without touching code or affecting all users.

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#27

Post by matsemann »

phoenix24 wrote: post #5
bpicolo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's room for more than one player in the market here, it's a super important sort of tool where the open source versions are all pretty mediocre. OSS solutions tend to be statically configured, which non-engineers don't tend to have access or ability to configure. That's not to say you couldn't OSS something here, but it'd be a real effort to host.

what are the open-source alternatives, if you don't mind me asking?

Unleash is very powerful.

https://github.com/Unleash/unleash

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#28

Post by rahilsondhi »

petetnt wrote: post #14

While I'd love to test out Airship, not being able to do that without signing up is pretty much a non-starter for me. When I say pretty much, I can often be persuaded with having at least the documentation available without signing up. For example Logrocket ( https://logrocket.com/ ) needs signing up, but the documentation is all there and I can immediately see the effects it will have on my app if applied.

+1. With this kind of product, I want to see docs and code snippets immediately. What kind of code do I have to write to use your product?

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#29

Post by platypus-d »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #25

Is there a reason your pricing jumps straight from $0 to "Contact Us"? Surely there's a $50/month plan or thereabouts that would be relevant to a lot of smaller companies? Congrats on the launch!

Right now, we're working with each each company, even small ones, to find out the right price point for them. If you have any questions on pricing, email us at hello@airshiphq.com

Re: Launch HN: Airship (YC W18) – Controlled rollouts of new features

#30

Post by platypus-d »

mritchie712 wrote: post #24
petetnt wrote: post #14

While I'd love to test out Airship, not being able to do that without signing up is pretty much a non-starter for me. When I say pretty much, I can often be persuaded with having at least the documentation available without signing up. For example Logrocket ( https://logrocket.com/ ) needs signing up, but the documentation is all there and I can immediately see the effects it will have on my app if applied.

How about a video that shows what the actual product looks like and does? That usually works for me and I prefer it to flashy videos that don't even show the real product in action.

A video sound like a great idea. We'll look into it!
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