

The $0 Startup - once Costly resources for Free - dholowiski
https://onepix.me/blogs/7-The-0-Startup

======
mdasen
Assembla isn't free for closed-source projects
(<http://www.assembla.com/plans?locale=en>) unless there's a hidden plan.
Apparently they made the change back in 2008
([http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/6986/R...](http://blog.assembla.com/assemblablog/tabid/12618/bid/6986/Release-2-0-restricting-
free-plans-giving-back-with-features-and-pric)), but this article was written
today which is confusing. Am I missing something?

BitBucket (<http://bitbucket.org>) went free for private repositories a while
back and recently added git support. That might be a better alternative today.

~~~
eogas
It looks like the author was talking about this:
<http://offers.assembla.com/free-git-hosting/>

I'm not sure why he/she didn't just link straight to that page. I also have to
vouch for bitbucket's awesomeness though. Their tools might not be quite as
fancy as the competitors, but they're slowly improving.

Also, Atlassian's academic license is hard to beat:
[http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-
academic-l...](http://www.atlassian.com/software/views/bitbucket-academic-
license)

You basically get their most expensive plan for free if you're a student. They
do the same thing for nonprofits I believe.

~~~
dholowiski
I meant to link to the free plan - yes it's kind of hidden. Must have copied
the wrong link.

------
run4yourlives
If you're using the free version of Fogbuzz anyway, you may as well use Kiln
instead of Assembla. Hg is just as good as git.

I'd go out on a limb and suggest that if you are just working by yourself in
pre-release development, don't even bother with a source code control. Use
dropbox instead. It's simpler and faster until you get something up and
running.

Once you actually need version control (as opposed to glorified backup) then
you can switch for little to no cost.

~~~
wanorris
I did this once on a personal project I was experimenting with. Then I started
working on a change that turned out to be a lot bigger than I thought it was,
and it ended up breaking everything. Trying to get it back to where it even
worked again turned out to be so much effort that it totally killed any
momentum I had.

So now I do everything in version control. Even minor little things I'm just
playing around with. And I _still_ use Dropbox as an extra failsafe against
something happening to my version control repository.

~~~
run4yourlives
>Once you actually need version control (as opposed to glorified backup) then
you can switch for little to no cost.

>Then I started working on a change

I would say here that once you are working on _changes_ , you need version
control.

~~~
nitrogen
But what is programming if not changes? :) You start with a skeleton (be it a
bare bones Sinatra server, or a .c file with only main() and a couple of
functions), commit it, then change it.

------
sudonim
It's better to use the right tool rather than the free one. I'm sure these
products being recommended are great. I don't use any of them.

At work we use Pivotal Tracker, Github, 37 signals suite and others. They all
cost money, and they all add value beyond their cost relative to free options.
I would strongly advise against using "free" as your price point. It'll cost
you.

~~~
dholowiski
On one hand it's true - you get what you pay for. On the other hand (and in my
case) if you're a one-man startup and you're broke (or deeply in debt), you
don't have money to spend on frivolous things like a web server, and free
resources like this mean the difference between launching and not launching. I
use everything I mentioned in my post... the only thing I'm paying for right
now is a server ($60 for 6 months), a domain name and SSL Cert. The domain
name? 1.99 with 10% off coupon and the cert was $10. I'm not saying this is
the best or the right way to do things, but for me it mean the difference
between sitting on my butt, and launching.

------
Zephyr314
As one of the commenters on the site mentioned, github has a free educational
tier (same as their micro tier).

Go to <https://github.com/edu> and fill out a quick form.

------
irickt
Chrome flags this site as having "Insecure content".

~~~
dholowiski
Yes... The whole site is HTTPS but the disqus comments are served by HTTP. I
need to make the blog section be served non HTTPS - this is #1 on my list of
things to fix.

------
politai
I would add mongohq for a free 16mb database. It's not much, but it's enought
to validate your idea if you have a small site.

~~~
lpolovets
MongoLab (<https://mongolab.com/about/pricing/>) offers 240mb for free. I've
used MongoLab and MongoHQ, and both are super easy to set up.

------
ricksta
my co-founder were coding at the local library one day with vim full screen,
and attracted the attention of the library security guards to come question
him if he is "hacking" the library.

