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Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

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Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#42
Congrats on the launch but I can’t see why I would go to this over Postmark. It’s so easy to get up and running, templates are solid, they have Zapier integration and the monthly fee starts at free for 100 emails and then $15 a month for over 1,000 a month.

What am I missing?

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#43
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Most front-end teams are using React nowadays. What happens when you adopt another email service is that they want you to learn the template language that they use - Handlebars, Mustache, etc. Instead of having to learn how to do things with that language, your front-end team can re-use everything they already know from React land. Imagine being able to import the same button you have on your web app into your…

Ya, but why does a transactional email service have anything to do with the front-end....I feel like I'm missing something very obvious but I can't seem to figure it out...

Emails are rendered like websites with a reduced featureset.

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#44
post #36
post #16

Help me understand the React selling point. Existing email sending software supports text and HTML because that's what email is . No email client out there supports JavaScript, virtual DOMs, event loops, SSR or any such fancy web technology. Instead of hand-crafting an HTML template with etc I'm supposed to use your custom React components ( ...) which you will promptly compile down to the tags I mentioned above. So.…

It's what every software developer out there using mindlessly. They are just putting React components and mixing them. NextJS also helps shield them from the back-end. You'd be surprised how many of them cannot differentiate between the back-end and the front-end and which parts are being executed by the server (it's netlify!). Anyway, maybe I am getting too old?

I don't think it's just us getting old. Newcomers to the filed don't really understand HTML and CSS. It's just "React components" to them, and they aren't looking deeper than that.

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#45
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Most front-end teams are using React nowadays. What happens when you adopt another email service is that they want you to learn the template language that they use - Handlebars, Mustache, etc. Instead of having to learn how to do things with that language, your front-end team can re-use everything they already know from React land. Imagine being able to import the same button you have on your web app into your…

Ya, but why does a transactional email service have anything to do with the front-end....I feel like I'm missing something very obvious but I can't seem to figure it out...

I don't mean this snarkily, but have you ever used a transactional email service? Literally all of them support frontend, I'd much rather use something like React than "Handlebars" (which Sendgrid requires https://docs.sendgrid.com/ui/sending-email/how-to-send-an-em...)

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Most front-end teams are using React nowadays. What happens when you adopt another email service is that they want you to learn the template language that they use - Handlebars, Mustache, etc. Instead of having to learn how to do things with that language, your front-end team can re-use everything they already know from React land. Imagine being able to import the same button you have on your web app into your…

Ya, but why does a transactional email service have anything to do with the front-end....I feel like I'm missing something very obvious but I can't seem to figure it out...

The business wants to maintain the same consistent style with all communications to the customer. A lot of thought goes into design systems, they don't want to throw that away in their emails.

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#47

Congrats on the launch but I can’t see why I would go to this over Postmark. It’s so easy to get up and running, templates are solid, they have Zapier integration and the monthly fee starts at free for 100 emails and then $15 a month for over 1,000 a month. What am I missing?

Well for one you can send 1000 emails for free with resend instead of 100 with postmark.

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#48

I think if you’re targeting developers, SES is your biggest competitor. Their very cheap pay as you go pricing is more attractive than your monthly pricing. If email templates with react is your usp, I think I’ve seen libraries that offer that already.

doesnt resend use SES themselves to send emails? domain dns settings in their dashboard appears to hint at this IIRC

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#49
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! Most front-end teams are using React nowadays. What happens when you adopt another email service is that they want you to learn the template language that they use - Handlebars, Mustache, etc. Instead of having to learn how to do things with that language, your front-end team can re-use everything they already know from React land. Imagine being able to import the same button you have on your web app into your…

Ya, but why does a transactional email service have anything to do with the front-end....I feel like I'm missing something very obvious but I can't seem to figure it out...

I _think_ the idea is just to use React as a templating language to write HTML emails, rather than dealing with the quirks of email HTML directly; it's not about sending emails from the frontend.

Re: Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React

#50
post #20

How long does it take to have my domain whitelisted? and should I be able to send emails under one domain? Do you support react-native? Can I send it from the backend (eg next.js server-side backend)? Is it for only transactional emails? Thanks!

How long does it take to have my domain whitelisted? - It usually takes only a few minutes depending on the DNS propagation

Should I be able to send emails under one domain? - Yes, you can add as many domains as you want in case you wanna send from multiple domains

Do you support react-native? - Resend is designed to be used in the backend, so you'll have to call an API from react-native

Can I send it from the backend (eg next.js server-side backend)? - Yes, here's a Next.js example: https://resend.com/docs/send-with-nextjs

Is it for only transactional emails? - It's designed around transactional emails, but you can use it for other use cases

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