Live data from Hacker News

Free Postgres databases for small projects

fly.io

51–60 of 231 posts

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#51

I'm so glad Fly exists. Every other edge focused thing out there I'm aware of are "serverless" which these days basically means they charge per request. That's fine for a lot of use cases, but the unit economics of the per request pricing model means it's really hard to operate a predictably sustainable (i.e. profitable) business without also charging our customers on a usage basis, or enforcing limits on usage, neit…

For a company that says it makes it super easy to deploy a container image and mentions that all you need to do "Write your code, package it into a Docker image, deploy it to Fly's platform"[0], they sure have a dearth of documentation on how to deploy an existing docker container.

I am not sure if I'm missing something or what, but here's where I looked:

   * googled 'docker fly' and a blog post that references docker but as far as I can see doesn't have instructions on deploying docker images shows up[1].
   * their getting started guide[2], called a 'speed run' which has all kinds of CLI commands but doesn't actually show how I'd pick a docker image.
   * their quickstart docs[3], which outline how to deploy all manner of applications, except for, you guessed it, an existing docker image.
   * scanned the menu of their docs, and didn't see anything.
I really want to like this service, as we have (at $CURJOB) an app packaged as a docker image that it'd be awesome to set up to run on Fly.io, especially with the multi-region postgresql.

What the heck am I missing? Can I just not read? Do I just need to install the CLI and all shall be made clear?

0: https://fly.io/docs/introduction/

1: https://fly.io/blog/docker-without-docker/

2: https://fly.io/docs/speedrun/

3: https://fly.io/docs/getting-started/

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#52
post #49
post #6

> We've had a free tier since we launched ten years ago (in 2020). I’m not a Fly.io customer (although more and more I am thinking I should be), but I eagerly read every new blog post because I’m so entertained by their tone. These people are clearly having fun at work.

> since we launched ten years ago (in 2020). 2010?

We're living Fly.io years. They hit us hard.

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#53

The jumps in prices for Postgres seem pretty high. The next step up from $7 is $28(4x). After that it’s $154(5.5x), and the next step up from that is $1266(8x). If I outgrow the $154 plan I have to jump to a ~$1300 plan. Is this right?

Not quite, but pricing is a little complicated AND we haven't shipped multi-shared CPU VMs yet.

Postgres prices are a function of the underlying resources. There are a bunch of steps between $7 and $28, you can put any size volume you want on your Postgres cluster and run 512MB or 1GB of RAM. 1GB RAM + 10GB volumes would be $14.40, for example.

Dedicated CPU VM types are much more powerful than the shared CPU. So the jump from $27 to $154 gets you, like, 20x the CPU power. I would like to have shared-cpu-2x, 4x, and 8x to give us a better cost gradient. So far it hasn't been an issue, though, people seem to want the extra CPU for a beefier DB.

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#54
post #51

I'm so glad Fly exists. Every other edge focused thing out there I'm aware of are "serverless" which these days basically means they charge per request. That's fine for a lot of use cases, but the unit economics of the per request pricing model means it's really hard to operate a predictably sustainable (i.e. profitable) business without also charging our customers on a usage basis, or enforcing limits on usage, neit…

For a company that says it makes it super easy to deploy a container image and mentions that all you need to do "Write your code, package it into a Docker image, deploy it to Fly's platform"[0], they sure have a dearth of documentation on how to deploy an existing docker container. I am not sure if I'm missing something or what, but here's where I looked: * googled 'docker fly' and a blog post that references docker…

You know, you're not really missing anything, we just don't connect the dots very well.

Install CLI, run `fly launch` in a directory with a Dockerfile, and it should just work.

Most of our users don't start with a Docker image though, they start with Phoenix. What you're seeing is a little bit of indecisiveness in how we target the docs.

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#56
post #51

I'm so glad Fly exists. Every other edge focused thing out there I'm aware of are "serverless" which these days basically means they charge per request. That's fine for a lot of use cases, but the unit economics of the per request pricing model means it's really hard to operate a predictably sustainable (i.e. profitable) business without also charging our customers on a usage basis, or enforcing limits on usage, neit…

For a company that says it makes it super easy to deploy a container image and mentions that all you need to do "Write your code, package it into a Docker image, deploy it to Fly's platform"[0], they sure have a dearth of documentation on how to deploy an existing docker container. I am not sure if I'm missing something or what, but here's where I looked: * googled 'docker fly' and a blog post that references docker…

You're right, they should make that much more clear. I'd expect it to be on the left side menu, just like they have all the "Run a [language] app".

Based on your first link [0], I saw,

> You can run most applications with a Dockerfile using the flyctl command.

With that, I looked over the left-side menu, and clicked `flyctl`[1], since it seems that's what you'd need to use to deploy an existing app with Docker. After that, I clicked on "Launch an App" [2], which shows help for the `flyctl launch` subcommand, including a parameter `--dockerfile`. I think that's how you would deploy an existing app with docker?

[0] https://fly.io/docs/introduction/ [1] https://fly.io/docs/flyctl/ [2] https://fly.io/docs/flyctl/launch/

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#58
post #54
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a company that says it makes it super easy to deploy a container image and mentions that all you need to do "Write your code, package it into a Docker image, deploy it to Fly's platform"[0], they sure have a dearth of documentation on how to deploy an existing docker container. I am not sure if I'm missing something or what, but here's where I looked: * googled 'docker fly' and a blog post that references docker…

You know, you're not really missing anything, we just don't connect the dots very well. Install CLI, run `fly launch` in a directory with a Dockerfile, and it should just work. Most of our users don't start with a Docker image though, they start with Phoenix. What you're seeing is a little bit of indecisiveness in how we target the docs.

Thanks! I'd rather run with a defined image, is there a way to do that?

Here's the image: https://hub.docker.com/r/fusionauth/fusionauth-app/tags (supports ARM or x86).

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30019258 shows, I think, how to do that.

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#59
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a company that says it makes it super easy to deploy a container image and mentions that all you need to do "Write your code, package it into a Docker image, deploy it to Fly's platform"[0], they sure have a dearth of documentation on how to deploy an existing docker container. I am not sure if I'm missing something or what, but here's where I looked: * googled 'docker fly' and a blog post that references docker…

You're right, they should make that much more clear. I'd expect it to be on the left side menu, just like they have all the "Run a [language] app". Based on your first link [0], I saw, > You can run most applications with a Dockerfile using the flyctl command. With that, I looked over the left-side menu, and clicked `flyctl`[1], since it seems that's what you'd need to use to deploy an existing app with Docker. After…

Thanks! As mentioned in sibling comment, I want to use an existing docker image, so probably `flyctl launch --image $NAME`.

Re: Free Postgres databases for small projects

#60
post #39

I'm so glad Fly exists. Every other edge focused thing out there I'm aware of are "serverless" which these days basically means they charge per request. That's fine for a lot of use cases, but the unit economics of the per request pricing model means it's really hard to operate a predictably sustainable (i.e. profitable) business without also charging our customers on a usage basis, or enforcing limits on usage, neit…

Serverless pricing model doesn't have to be transferred to your customers. If you know them well and their usage patterns, you can predict with confidence how much each customer will cost you. With granularity to the level of a feature or even a particular action. This allows for extremely precise and safe unit economics planning. I couldn't be happier with this benefit from serverless. In a server-based infra you ha…

If your server administrator doubles as your sales person maybe but for most companies these are different roles and you need someone to manage your fly.io account/docker image or your aws account. Sales, customer support, legal, marketing should be affected. If you are a one man show that's a different conversation.
Post reply on HN