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My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

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Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#151

Post by mjay23 »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #82
adg33 wrote: post #43

> I use AWS EC2 for Waitlist's backend python webserver, RDS for the postgres database, S3 for file storage, and an Elastic IP. I use T2 and T3 instances. My AWS bill would be $200-300 a month My guess is that RDS is eating up the cost here? I've been using Litestream on datasciencesouth.com - it has flaws but if you can get away with it, it's much cheaper than RDS.

The thing about RDS is that you’re paying for database backups and failover etc to be someone else’s problem. Given that the data is often an extremely critical art of the application and the high chance that you are probably not doing it right if you’re not an expert it’s often worth it to pay for managed db. RDS is a pretty raw deal in that space though. Someone else rightfully pointed out that you can get Supabase…

Rds starts at $15/month so how is $30 significantly cheaper?

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#152

Post by ilrwbwrkhv »

julianeon wrote: post #111
thecodrr wrote: post #11

I would NOT call this frugal at all, actually. You are overspending in a lot of places and under spending in others. $281.32 per month for such a simple service is...astonishing. Change Vercel and Intercom with Cloudflare and Chatwoot (self hosted), and you have saved $120/mo. Get rid of Ahrefs for Ubersuggest (or no SEO tool at all) to save about $80 more. That leaves you with $81.32/mo. If you try even harder, you…

There are a lot of use cases for which you can’t actually save by kicking out Ahrefs. Of all the tools here it is the hardest one to replicate. I agree w the rest - but in many situations Ahrefs is not replaceable.

What does it provide that is so special?

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#153

Post by shortrounddev2 »

withinboredom wrote: post #148
willsmith72 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah and maintain and monitor it yourself when you could be building the product

Is it really that hard to install netdata? It's a single command. It is really no different than managing VPS's, in all honesty (just less expensive and tangible). I spend less than one hour a week doing updates and routine maintenance. Drive failures happen rarely, and can usually be swapped out within a few hours (this is what RAID is for). More time is spent dealing with k8s and it's shenanigans than dealing with…

> It is really no different than managing VPS

Many people don't do that. My company uses EKS and we just send dockerfiles and yaml files at it. We don't ever actually interface with an ssh prompt on our servers

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#154

Post by mrweasel »

Propelloni wrote: post #138
dangus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as you're willing to roll your own infrastructure Uh huh. This is why DevOps/SRE roles pay more than development roles. “Step 2: draw the rest of the owl”

They do? That's interesting news!

Also more open positions, at least in some market.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#155

Post by pembrook »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #17
thecodrr wrote: post #11

I would NOT call this frugal at all, actually. You are overspending in a lot of places and under spending in others. $281.32 per month for such a simple service is...astonishing. Change Vercel and Intercom with Cloudflare and Chatwoot (self hosted), and you have saved $120/mo. Get rid of Ahrefs for Ubersuggest (or no SEO tool at all) to save about $80 more. That leaves you with $81.32/mo. If you try even harder, you…

I agree. Use one of the OSS password managers to save on 1P. If you have a cloud sync service you already use, KeePassXC + cloud sync will solve having the passwords available everywhere you are. You can even use Syncthing for free (though I'd at least donate once off) since you can use it peer-to-peer between your devices. SEO really needs disruption here on price. Ubersuggest seems decent. On Intercom: OP can proba…

Does nobody here see the irony in bending over backwards to avoid spending money on software products when the entire purpose of your business is to sell a software product?

I could see if we were talking about a side project with no commercial intent. But this post is about an indie Saas founder...if a few hundred dollars a month is a barrier to success, then that's a pretty good sign your indie startup isn't starting up.

I find these threads endlessly amusing considering that, for hundreds of years, starting a business involved massive investments in real estate, physical equipment, etc. We're living the dream, yet somehow quibbling over spending $10/month on a piece of software. If it saves you just 2 hours, per year, then it's worth it.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#156

Post by zeroonetwothree »

pembrook wrote: post #155
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Use one of the OSS password managers to save on 1P. If you have a cloud sync service you already use, KeePassXC + cloud sync will solve having the passwords available everywhere you are. You can even use Syncthing for free (though I'd at least donate once off) since you can use it peer-to-peer between your devices. SEO really needs disruption here on price. Ubersuggest seems decent. On Intercom: OP can proba…

Does nobody here see the irony in bending over backwards to avoid spending money on software products when the entire purpose of your business is to sell a software product? I could see if we were talking about a side project with no commercial intent. But this post is about an indie Saas founder...if a few hundred dollars a month is a barrier to success, then that's a pretty good sign your indie startup isn't starti…

I think it’s just because it’s described as “frugal”.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#157

Post by withinboredom »

nik736 wrote: post #128
niemandhier wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that once and the data center burned down. Sure I could have the service spread over several centers and build distributed backups etc. In the end self hosting and self managing is a money / time trade off, especially for a side gig I’d us SAS and managed solutions. The one thing one has to make sure off is to not get locked in with a particular provider, so knowing how to do everything yourself is a very valua…

A Google Cloud region in France was also unavailable for months (or still is?) due to flooding/electricity. But no one is talking about it.

Didn't that happen from someone leaving a sink on or something, causing flooding and then the UPS batteries to short and explode?

I was there when someone at AWS accidentally unplugged an entire region.

Shit happens, it doesn't matter where it's hosted. People act like the cloud is infallible or something. You're literally sending lightning bolts worth of electricity through bricks of metal. Anything can happen.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#159

Post by pembrook »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #156
pembrook wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does nobody here see the irony in bending over backwards to avoid spending money on software products when the entire purpose of your business is to sell a software product? I could see if we were talking about a side project with no commercial intent. But this post is about an indie Saas founder...if a few hundred dollars a month is a barrier to success, then that's a pretty good sign your indie startup isn't starti…

I think it’s just because it’s described as “frugal”.

I take frugal to mean being smart or conservative with spending. However, optimizing to the extent some people are talking about here would redefine the term to mean "irrational" for me.

In the context of a business, nearly any piece of software is a trivial cost compared to hiring a human (or yourself) to do a task.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#160

Post by fhd2 »

pembrook wrote: post #155
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Use one of the OSS password managers to save on 1P. If you have a cloud sync service you already use, KeePassXC + cloud sync will solve having the passwords available everywhere you are. You can even use Syncthing for free (though I'd at least donate once off) since you can use it peer-to-peer between your devices. SEO really needs disruption here on price. Ubersuggest seems decent. On Intercom: OP can proba…

Does nobody here see the irony in bending over backwards to avoid spending money on software products when the entire purpose of your business is to sell a software product? I could see if we were talking about a side project with no commercial intent. But this post is about an indie Saas founder...if a few hundred dollars a month is a barrier to success, then that's a pretty good sign your indie startup isn't starti…

I generally agree, but I'd say it depends. I'm not too surprised that software developers are less likely to spend money on software - they do have another option non-programmers don't have. I'd also not be shocked to hear that trained accountants starting a company are less likely to hire accounting firms than non-accountants.

And most software I deal with isn't exactly free of opportunity cost - I dabbled a bit with accounting tools to the point of frustration and time sunk that I decided to roll my own (built around ledger, in case anyone cares) in about a day. Writing my own tool is sometimes faster for me than trying to figure out how to use one that's not designed around my specific needs.

Sure, 10$ doesn't seem like much, but all these little invoices can creep up to a non-trivial sum.

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