
Show HN: A self-hosted alternative to Trello, Basecamp, and Freshbooks - 23andwalnut
https://duetapp.com
======
23andwalnut
I'm a solo developer and I built the first version of this app a couple of
years ago. This is the third major rewrite and I've added a ton of
functionality since then (i.e. recurring invoicing, kanban, reply by email,
more flexible user roles, etc). I'd love to hear any feedback you guys have -
about the actual app, the landing page, or anything else. Always looking to
make it better and more appealing. I'll be completely honest, marketing has
been...very challenging for this product, but occasionally there will be a
huge boost in traffic and sales will go up pretty quick, I just haven't been
able to make it sustainable.

Here's the HN discussion from when I posted the first version a couple of
years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5698741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5698741)

I already got approval from dang to post again since it's been so long and a
lot has changed about the app.

~~~
coldshower
I purchased Duet a few years ago and it was unworkable. When I asked for a
refund you denied me.

No hard feelings, but you didn't back your work (or even offer to troubleshoot
the problem) so I won't be buying again.

~~~
23andwalnut
Really sorry you didn't have a good experience. I'm not sure why you weren't
able to get support. I've always done my best with that and I've recently
formalized the process with a support center, ticketing system, and community
based support.

If you're interested in trying the new version please open a ticket
([http://duetapp.com/ticket](http://duetapp.com/ticket)) and I'll just give
you a copy of 2.4, the current version. No fee. Just let me know what email
you used when you made the original purchase.

~~~
coldshower
The issue was something to do with the software being slow. You said it was
probably my server. When I asked for a refund you politely refused. Again,
this was several years ago and I don't remember the exact details. I just
moved on and made a mental note never to buy your software again.

BTW, thanks for the offer but I'm happy with what I'm using now. Best of luck
to you.

~~~
csomar
I wonder if a simple requirement with one-click install (DigitalOcean droplet
with 1GB of ram, etc..) could solve this problem.

~~~
pyre
As an example, there is one-click-to-deploy here[1] for Heroku and Azure.

[1] [https://github.com/rauchg/slackin](https://github.com/rauchg/slackin)

------
mangeletti
This situation (upgrading server during traffic spike) is an example of why
saving a $20-50/mo on hosting isn't worth it, unless it's for something non-
commercial.

If you've got maybe tens of thousands of dollars of time (and money?) invested
in your app, what's another $40-80/mo for better hosting (e.g., 8GB/4 cores on
Digital Ocean is $80/mo), in case something like this traffic spike happens?
The app reaches the top of HN, where thousands of people that use Trello,
Basecamp, and/or Freshbooks (I use all 3, every day) will be frequenting, and
you've lost all that revenue.

~~~
23andwalnut
Completely agree. Once it happened though, my options were limited. Just
trying to improve the experience for everyone that will come after the resize
is done (should be soon). Seems slightly better than providing a terrible
experience for the entire day rather than for just 30 mins.

EDIT: And we're back :) Sorry it took so long.

~~~
sciurus
One of my two requests to your site loaded eventually. I don't see any reason
why your front page couldn't be cached indefinitely. I don't know what
webserver you are using, but here are some guides:

[https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/caching.html](https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/caching.html)

[https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-caching-
guide/](https://www.nginx.com/blog/nginx-caching-guide/)

------
taco_emoji
(Disclaimer: I'm not your target demo, so feel free to ignore this...)

What kind of backup/restore capabilities does this have? If I were in the
market for this, that'd be one of my primary concerns in deciding between
self-hosted vs. cloud. Ideally one atomic operation to back up all my data,
and another single operation to restore, such that I could install Duet on a
new host, restore the backup, and be back on my feet.

Also: how easy is this for non-technical users to install? It might be worth
your time to make guides for one or more specific hosting companies, taking
them through the process to purchase hosting, domain name, etc.

~~~
23andwalnut
The installer does backups during the upgrade process. There's no mechanism
for on-demand backups though. I suppose it would be trivial to add that
functionality. Restoring from a backup, while simple, has some manual steps.

Since I have no control over where Duet gets installed, and my customers have
a wide variety of server capabilities, I try to keep everything as simple as
possible. Install takes about 5 minutes and all you really need is the ability
to ftp to your server and the know-how to hunt down your mysql credentials.
99% of the time when people have trouble it's just a matter of helping them
figure out their correct credentials.

~~~
sbarre
Do you provide instructions on how to do proper backups? I know that's perhaps
"not your problem" but for the type of information you're offering to manage
(invoicing, time tracking, project data, etc), a server failure could be
catastrophic to someone's business.

Maybe a future version should provide easy backups (to Amazon S3 or even just
a "click here to download a zip of your data") and a periodic warning to users
who have not backed up in a while.

~~~
23andwalnut
I can put those instructions together. I'll add them to the support page as
soon as I do.

A zip backup method would be fairly simple to implement. I'll definitely think
about that for a future release.

------
23andwalnut
On the phone with my host right now to try to fix the slowness of the site. I
honestly wasn't expecting to hit the front page again.

~~~
skrowl
If only there were some kind of HUB that people could use for their FOSS
projects that provided free hosting on giant piles of bandwidth!

It would be nice if it used GIT too!

Man, that would be pretty sweet.

~~~
23andwalnut
Ha. It's actually not FOSS, so Github wouldn't be a good fit for me right now.

~~~
jnagro
so how is it self-hosted if its not open-source? (site is down right now) how
is it packaged? what platforms does it run on?

~~~
sleepychu
Open-source means a lot of things, in particular this product is probably not
freely available/distributable (as in beer & speech). Just because they're
going to give you some source files that you could read to self host doesn't
mean that the product is open source.

------
atria
Nice. I'm forever looking for any viable alternative to QuickBooks. I've even
thought about writing my own invoicing application.

Looks great, but I personally don't like the collaboration tools mashed into
the dash board. It looks cluttered. It also wasn't clear what information the
client's would see. If they saw dollar amounts, it's a deal killer-- I work
with too many clients and am assigned to work with other non-management
employees.

Also, for reports -- I only saw a graph. I need to see who's behind and take
action to get paid, and follow up with phone calls, emails, and letters.

I'd also like to see the ability to print invoices to mail them to clients.
Some clients are overwhelmed with email, but a paper invoice gets paid.

My complaints with most projects in this genre I've evaluated -- they seem to
be written by freelancers who've never had bad clients, never had to chase
people down for payment, or never been in a relationship that turns sour.

Work for one bad client, and it will change you, and how you do business.

~~~
andyraskin
I've been checking out a few invoicing app alternatives:

* InvoicePlane - self-hosted, open source (PHP). [https://invoiceplane.com/](https://invoiceplane.com/)

* Invoicely (formerly Invoiceable): [http://invoicely.com](http://invoicely.com)

* Hiveage: [https://www.hiveage.com](https://www.hiveage.com)

I've mainly been using Invoicely (free if you just create invoices and send
them as PDFs), but now feeling bad about it because:
[https://medium.com/@prabhaths/invoicely-a-hiveage-rip-
off-b9...](https://medium.com/@prabhaths/invoicely-a-hiveage-rip-
off-b92fa411a2bb#.sw4fzip4a) I really like free, though, so thinking about
switching to InvoicePlane.

------
BinaryIdiot
Have you thought about providing this as a SaaS offering? This looks really
nice but I get the feeling you're in the middle between two markets. You're
not quite in the enterprise space because this is super cheap and you don't
seem to offer support contracts (and you're mostly going to get sales by doing
demos for companies) and you're certainly not in the single user market (no
single person except a developer, MAYBE, would install their own web
application just to handle tasking).

In my opinion I would offer SaaS for a low price, say, $5 a month or something
so single users can use it and then provide a separate area of business, much
like Github Enterprise, where you will meet with companies and charge for the
full product as a yearly license with installation and update fees and
possibly support contracts.

------
andreasklinger
Why do you offer the software so cheap?

Even the developer hour to just evaluate this tool would be more expensive
already for any company.

Imo: push the price to somewhere between 299 and 599 - maybe make the invoice
feature the premium reason

------
23andwalnut
Resizing the server, so it will be down for about 30 minutes, but performance
should be greatly improved when it's done.

~~~
esafwan
I am not sure if you have considered this already. Put Cloudflare in front of
your site and write a page rule to cache html too. You server will hardly get
any hit for cachable pages(which i believe most of your pages are) and then
enable always online feature. All the best. :)

------
gramakri
Thanks, just played with the demo and looks very polished. This seems to be
very useful for consultants working on multiple projects/customers.

Can you give me some insight into your existing customers? Do they come for
privacy or price or because it's better than Trello/Basecamp/Freshbooks? If
they had to pick one, which would they choose?

~~~
23andwalnut
Thanks! From the survey I did a couple of weeks ago there's a pretty even
three way split between privacy, price, and brandability. I didn't realize the
branding aspect was so important and that's why I just added it to the
marketing page. I don't think it's necessarily 'better' than those services,
it's just integrated...and self hosted...both of which are very appealing to a
certain segment of the market.

~~~
gramakri
We make a platform for self-hosting (cloudron.io), so I am always reaching out
to people making self-hosted products and curious to know who the customers
are.

Best of luck!

------
kowdermeister
It's not a hacker news traffic bump, I found this project a few days ago and
the site also didn't load. I thought it's gone for good.

~~~
23andwalnut
A billing hiccup with my host actually. My credit card expired and I didn't
keep up with the messages from my host letting me know I needed to update it.
So they took a more extreme measure. It was only down for an hour or two, but
sorry for the inconvenience.

~~~
r0fl
Maybe you need Freshbooks to stay on top of all your accounting needs?
Kidding! Great looking site! Can't wait to try it out.

------
molsongolden
Is there any way to pay for upgrades with duet? I purchased a license last
time this came up on HN (when it was on codecanyon?) then forgot about it for
a bit, didn't download the source in time and lost the ability to access the
code.

~~~
23andwalnut
Yes, absolutely. Free upgrades last for a year, so you would need to purchase
new license if you wanted the latest version. Or you can open a ticket and
I'll send you the last version you were eligible for.

------
zapt02
I remember buying version 1 of Duet back in the day. I also remember you
taking it off marketplaces and stop supporting it for your existing users. I
hope you have bettered your ways since then, but I wouldn't count on it.

~~~
23andwalnut
You're right, I did take it off codecanyon. It wasn't the right place for it.
I'll also admit that there was a period where support wasn't that great. But
I've done a lot to improve it since then and now I have a support center, a
support community, and a formal support ticketing process....instead of the
email based support I was attempting to provide, which is impossible to keep
up with. And regardless of whether you purchased the app on Codecanyon, you're
still eligible to receive support even though I no longer sell there. Anyway,
I'm really sorry you had a bad experience, but I'm happy to help with any
issues had or are still having.

------
jrs235
Just tried going to the website and received a warning from Webroot
SecureAnywhere stating the website contains a knwon threat and has been
blocked. (Contains malicious content). You might want to get that checked
out...

~~~
23andwalnut
Thanks for letting me know. There's definitely no malicious content on the
site. I've had false positives in the past with a different service. I'll look
into it and try to figure out what's going on.

~~~
jrs235
Perhaps someone has hacked you today? After getting the warning Chrome
basically locked up and I noticed it said it was trying to connect to
paypal.com?

~~~
23andwalnut
Pretty sure that's just Gumroad pre-loading things it needs for it's checkout
experience. But definitely going to look into it.

~~~
jrs235
The lock up was because I was dumb and it was Werbroot waiting for me to do
something with its warning dialog. But the tab did say it was trying to
connect to paypal.com so perhaps webroot is keying off something involving
that.

------
anotheryou
google cache:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https%3A%2F%2Fduetapp.com%2F)

~~~
squeaky-clean
Wayback Machine also has a cached version from a week ago with the images
included. Most of the links seem to work too.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160330094157/https://duetapp.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160330094157/https://duetapp.com/)

------
philplckthun
The website was a bit slow to load... Like the last time, I guess? Hug of
death :P

I love how simple it is. Really good job at breaking complex behaviour down
into smaller interactions. I think this looks even better than Asana.
Dependencies on a "parent task" planned?

------
altsyset
The advantage of this option is clear. That is why people will jump on it. Yet
the challenge of having self hosted products is providing continuous
development, support and maintenance.

This challenge is not just for the client it is for you, the developer too.
You must make sure they have a way to update their product and you to continue
to develop in one place.

------
nattaylor
I had to load a version from
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160330094157/https://duetapp.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160330094157/https://duetapp.com/)
but this looks very cool. I do a small amount of paid side work and currently
use [https://www.freelancecockpit.com/](https://www.freelancecockpit.com/)

Once the demo is back online, I'm looking forward to giving it a test drive.

~~~
taco_emoji
The archive.org version appears to be pretty out-of-date at first glance

------
otto_ortega
I only wanted to say it has a pretty nice GUI. I'm a solo developer too, and
try to put a lot of attention to the visual part of my projects. This one came
out very nicely. Congrats!

------
cdvonstinkpot
Hey I've tried to talk with your customer service/sales through that chat
widget on your website- twice now, but get nothing.

I have a couple questions before I buy. Could you or someone knowlegeable
about the product reach me, please?

Contact info in HN profile.

-Thanks

------
nyfresh
Came here to see all the reasons should be converted to A SaaS Based solution,
was not disappointed.

I've seen questions about \- Required tech specs \- Potential upgrades \-
Trial periods \- Varying pricing schemes \- General support

These things are handled differently with SaaS. Its easier to address with
continued income too.

~~~
23andwalnut
Ha. Yep, I knew that was coming too. They are definitely things I've thought
about. I wrote about my thoughts a couple of years ago. You can check it out
here: [http://www.duetapp.com/blog/is-saas-the-only-business-
model-...](http://www.duetapp.com/blog/is-saas-the-only-business-model-for-
the-web/)

But I like the idea of a 1-click Digital Ocean install. I'm going to work on
that asap

------
fimdomeio
I like overall but I see some usability ui issues with buttons in unexpected
places and the lack of something that can be used as task status. I normaly
use the collumns for logical groups of tasks so I can work on similiar things
one after the other. I will consider it in the near future.

------
ruraljuror
Looks great! Inspiring to see this quality from a solo project.

I don't spend much time in Show HN, but if constructive feedback is
encouraged, check out your CSS on Nexus 6P. Overall looks great but menu and
comment widget are slightly off screen to the right.

------
csu
Sandstorm ([https://sandstorm.io/](https://sandstorm.io/)) would be a great
way to self-host apps like this. I believe that they are working on a
monetization model for paid apps.

------
lasfter
I think I found a typo on the front page but I'm not sure, all the way down at

"plus... Duet has everything you need to run your business"

...

"Client Portal: Give _you client's_ access..."

Should that not be "Give your clients access" ?

------
piotrkubisa
It reminds me the soloapp [1] which also has been created by 23andwalnut [2].

[1] [http://getsoloapp.com](http://getsoloapp.com)

[2]: according to mail in the footer on this website.

~~~
23andwalnut
Yep. That's another one of my apps :)

------
the_common_man
I am curious if all this traffic is generating any tangible revenue.

~~~
23andwalnut
Yes. Definitely. I might write a post about it when everything settles down.

------
KayL
Pretty nice UI. Always looking for an APP with all these functions. Would like
to know the background framework used in this source and the cost for 2nd
year?

~~~
23andwalnut
It's PHP and Javascript. MVC on client and server, but no frameworks. The 2nd
year cost is the same as the first, but you only have to pay if you want to
continue getting upgrades. But you're certainly free to continue using the
version you have forever.

------
cdvonstinkpot
It would be great if you could get this to install as part of what webhosts
provide for cpanel-type installers, eg Softaculous.

------
slig
Have you considered selling it on CodeCanyon? I've found great self-hosted
products there (for instance, MailWizz).

~~~
23andwalnut
Duet actually started out on CodeCanyon :) I was a very active elite author on
there for a few years. Ultimately it wasn't the right fit. I actually wrote an
article about my decision at the time: [http://www.duetapp.com/blog/why-i-
stopped-selling-duet-on-co...](http://www.duetapp.com/blog/why-i-stopped-
selling-duet-on-codecanyon/)

~~~
slig
That's a great perspective to hear. Thanks for sharing!

------
speg
> occasionally there will be a huge boost in traffic

Ha, that appears to be the case now as I can't load the page. :)

------
thraway111
Bought it, dont recommend. Most things dont work like they should

~~~
23andwalnut
Please open a ticket here:
[http://duetapp.com/ticket](http://duetapp.com/ticket) and I will help you fix
whatever issues you're having. 99.9% of issues are simple config problems so
I'm sure we can get it resolved quickly.

------
mrmondo
Not loading at all for me unfortunately. Have you got a link to the GitHub/Lab
project page for it? What's it written in?

~~~
howdydo
It's not open source, so no Git page for it.

~~~
mrmondo
Oh, that's a shame, Why is it not open source? Many companies (and
governments) I know have or are adopting policies to only use open source
software unless there's a /really/ good case not to.

I certainly wouldn't run a self hosted service at our work that wasn't open
source, I couldn't imagine going back to a world where we couldn't inspect or
contribute to the source:

~~~
23andwalnut
There's a discussion about this above, but open source has many meanings.
Duet's source is open, meaning you can absolute inspect and/or modify it once
you purchase it, but it's not free software, so the source isn't publicly
available, which is why it's not on github.

~~~
mrmondo
Actually open source software just has one meaning:

"Open-source software (OSS) is computer software with its source code made
available with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to
study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.
Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative public manner."

\---

* [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition)

* [http://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/](http://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/)

~~~
23andwalnut
Sure. But there's a distinct difference between FOSS and paid software. Many
people think FOSS = OSS. The original comment asked about Github, and the
subsequent conversation led me to believe at least one of the commenters was
thought that because it wasn't on Github, that the source wasn't open. I was
attempting to clear up that confusion, while pointing out where on the
spectrum my product falls.

------
jedicoffee
Annnddd it's down. :(

------
leovarmak
Looks super cool !

------
tessela
Is there any API?

------
anonbanker
This looks very cool. However, the Kanban side looks a little less-than-robust
compared to trello.

You're also in an uphill battle against Colony[0], who are the new hotness in
this space.

0\. [https://colony.io/](https://colony.io/)

~~~
willyk
seems odd to suggest Colony is the new hotness, when there isn't a product
available yet -- looks like Sep is the target date
([https://blog.colony.io/an-update-on-colony-
july-2016-7e2004e...](https://blog.colony.io/an-update-on-colony-
july-2016-7e2004e8aaa9))

~~~
anonbanker
The alpha is available to a select few (Thanks Collin!). You'll love it when
it's released.

