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PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

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Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#11

Post by chanrises »

tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

I am also confused. What are the benefits of phpfog if it normally only takes 15 min to create a linux server with php/mysql on amazon ec2? The only things I could see different are db slave replication and http caching, but generally those you don't worry till much later, and are not critical.

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#12

Post by aheilbut »

chanrises wrote: post #11
tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

I am also confused. What are the benefits of phpfog if it normally only takes 15 min to create a linux server with php/mysql on amazon ec2? The only things I could see different are db slave replication and http caching, but generally those you don't worry till much later, and are not critical.

Does it really take that much time to create a linux server with rails on EC2?

Energy barriers seem to matter.

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#14

Post by steveklabnik »

tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

By now, you deploy Ruby applications in the same way you deploy PHP applications, for the most part. We've come a long way since a few years ago. An Apache + passenger setup looks basically the same as Apache + mod_php.

Here's the secret sauce of Heroku: I know how to set up servers. I don't want to.

Paying for convenience is always a good business model.

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#16

Post by chanri »

steveklabnik wrote: post #14
tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

By now, you deploy Ruby applications in the same way you deploy PHP applications, for the most part. We've come a long way since a few years ago. An Apache + passenger setup looks basically the same as Apache + mod_php. Here's the secret sauce of Heroku: I know how to set up servers. I don't want to. Paying for convenience is always a good business model.

Just wondering, how much control do you have over configuration settings for Heroku?

I imagine you could save a lot of money by optimizing apache/mysql rather than using the default configuration Heroku sets.

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#17

Post by mikey_p »

chanrises wrote: post #11
tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

I am also confused. What are the benefits of phpfog if it normally only takes 15 min to create a linux server with php/mysql on amazon ec2? The only things I could see different are db slave replication and http caching, but generally those you don't worry till much later, and are not critical.

I think most of the people that could do that for the LAMP stack could probably get through setting up a Ruby or node server without too much extra time. Also, once you're done it, how hard is it do repeat? Yet I don't see folks making these same arguments against Heroku. One of the key points I got from talking to Lucas is that he's focusing not just on scalability, but HA, which is something that while not hard to do for the LAMP stack, isn't trivial either (usually it's just a matter of time spent setting it up).

The other neat (or annoying step) is that PHPFog goes the git route for handling your code. Just signing up and creating a site puts a default codebase for the platform you've selected into your git repo, and you just check it out, and commit to get started.

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#18

Post by gexla »

chanrises wrote: post #11
tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

I am also confused. What are the benefits of phpfog if it normally only takes 15 min to create a linux server with php/mysql on amazon ec2? The only things I could see different are db slave replication and http caching, but generally those you don't worry till much later, and are not critical.

With Phusion Passenger, a Ruby environment is just as easy to setup these days as PHP. Back when Heroku first started, I don't think Phusion Passenger existed.

However, the point of these services isn't necessarily to save the developer from having to setup these environments, but rather it's to save the developer from worrying about having to setup a solid, scalable production setup. You still should have a development setup which lives somewhere other than Heroku.

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#19

Post by mikey_p »

steveklabnik wrote: post #14
tmcw wrote: post #8

Don't really get this one. First off, PHP doesn't have the deploy/run process of Sinatra/Ruby/Node/etc. Second, 1.8 mil isn't much money; that's probably the amount you could bootstrap with some past success. And the business-plan-like graphic doesn't reveal that there's anything interesting in their tech approach than any commodity hosting.

By now, you deploy Ruby applications in the same way you deploy PHP applications, for the most part. We've come a long way since a few years ago. An Apache + passenger setup looks basically the same as Apache + mod_php. Here's the secret sauce of Heroku: I know how to set up servers. I don't want to. Paying for convenience is always a good business model.

>Here's the secret sauce of Heroku: I know how to set up servers. I don't want to. >Paying for convenience is always a good business model.

This.

I really wish that the Pantheon folks would scale up and open up their platform to generic PHP apps. It's everything I want setup and ready to go: Varnish, Apache, MariaDB, PHP5 APC, Memcached, Solr, Hudson all on one box, configured for dev, staging and prod environments, and managed via git and Hudson for deployments and automation.

https://getpantheon.com/about

Edit: Forgot to add that the best part about the Pantheon service is that while you can use it as a total SaaS like Heroku, it's also 100% hackable, you have root on the box, and can change anything that you want to, quite an amazing idea (have to see how their support issues pan out).

Re: PHP Fog Raises $1.8 Million To Be The Heroku Of PHP

#20

Post by aaronbrethorst »

chanri wrote: post #16
steveklabnik wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By now, you deploy Ruby applications in the same way you deploy PHP applications, for the most part. We've come a long way since a few years ago. An Apache + passenger setup looks basically the same as Apache + mod_php. Here's the secret sauce of Heroku: I know how to set up servers. I don't want to. Paying for convenience is always a good business model.

Just wondering, how much control do you have over configuration settings for Heroku? I imagine you could save a lot of money by optimizing apache/mysql rather than using the default configuration Heroku sets.

You don't get a ton of control. And yeah, you could save some money by setting up your own servers and fine-tuning them just the way you want to.

But I don't want to. Like Steve above, I can set up a server, but I really don't want to deal with that stuff. Heroku's value-add to me is that my time is better spent on being a software engineer than being an ops engineer. That value-add is worth the extra money.

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