
Show HN: 1MB – Free and easy static website hosting and database - 1mbsite
https://1mb.site
======
jszymborski
Things I love about this:

I would have given my left ear to have a similar service growing up. There
were a billion "free hosting" sites that let you throw PHP scripts up on them,
and "free mysql" hosts that let you have a couple of free tables of X rows,
which give a 12yo an incredible head start when it came to web-dev. The
downside is that those sites were trying to push scuzzy gambling sites or were
soft targets for hackers. This feels like a clean, modern reincarnation of
that!

No, this isn't posterous where your creations will live forever, this is a
little playground for those who don't know how to or rather not configure a
VPS for a little toy they've made.

Great job!

(EDIT: Shout-out to 2008's T35.com and CJB.net and their free php hosting and
short sub-domains
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080617010556/http://www.t35.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080617010556/http://www.t35.com/)
,
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210303/http://www.cjb.ne...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080408210303/http://www.cjb.net/))

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you for your kind words! In closing I can assure you that your creations
will live forever on 1MB as long as you don’t delete your account and follow
everything outlined on [https://policy.1mb.site](https://policy.1mb.site).
Also pride ourselves in being more secure than your average free website host

~~~
markdown
> In closing I can assure you that your creations will live forever on 1MB

I can assure you that the opposite is true. Tumblr deleted half their content.
MySpace lost _all_ their content. GeoCities lost everything. Facebook
"accidentally" lost Zuckerberg's old posts and with all the money and software
"engineers" in the world can't recover them. Startups and corporations that
had the kind of money and technical expertise you could only dream of can't
keep data forever. Don't get carried away and make promises there is no way
you can keep.

EDIT: I see you've redefined forever in the fine print:

> 1MB is not a big company. This is a project funded, developed, and
> maintained by an individual. By subscribing to Pro you are helping keep this
> project online for years to come.

> (1) Forever or for the life of the project. 1MB isn't going anywhere, but we
> also can't predict the future. No refunds!

~~~
et-al
> GeoCities lost everything.

Small nitpick, but Yahoo _deleted_ everything. Let's not forget how poorly run
Yahoo is.

~~~
markdown
Thanks for the clarification. For the purposes of my argument, the reason why
the data no longer exists is irrelevant.

------
revvx
Love it, but one suggestion:

I'd change the headline to "1MB – Free and easy static website hosting and
database".

That database is the edge you have compared to Netlify and Github pages people
are asking for :)

The authentication part is a nice touch, too. Feels more like a community
thing.

Checked out the API and you even have easy to setup database permissions. I
like it.

-

Questions: do you plan to offer paid plans for people wishing to host more
than 1MB, or having paid support? Maybe paid private login workspaces and SSO
could be a paid feature too.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :) Pro members get 1GB of storage and some other features:
[https://pro.1mb.site](https://pro.1mb.site) (coming soon)

~~~
revvx
Nice to hear! Sounds like you have a great product AND a plan :)

~~~
1mbsite
Pro launched! :)

~~~
DenseComet
You should really consider having Pro not being a onetime fee, but rather a
monthly subscription, or at the very least both options. A single one time
$100 fee is unlikely to go well with most users, but many more would be ok
with contributing $5 or so a month if it meant supporting a good service.

~~~
1mbsite
Pro is $5 a month or $100 for a lifetime plan. The monthly option isn’t
available until I implement the new payment processor but please stay tuned I
hear you :)

~~~
quickthrower2
Worth telling people that a $5 a month is coming soon. Collect their email
addresses.

Also the "no one can predict the future" is a bit scary so another thing is to
promise you can get your data out as a static site for netlify, github etc. at
any time.

~~~
1mbsite
Hit the subscribe to newsletter button in account settings I’m sending out an
announcement when monthly pricing launches.

~~~
quickthrower2
Thanks. But: I am suggesting you add clarity for other visitors to your site
so you don't lose them because they think $100 and "it might disappear next
year + tough shit no refund" is the only option.

By the way your offering fills a certain niche that I am interested in. That
is the niche where a technical person like myself wants to design a site using
HTML & CSS in text editor (how else would you do it!) but there is another
nontechnical person who wants a nicer editor to edit the content. In addition
I want a fast and cheap CDN type of offering. Netlify is what I use now, but
it means I have to make the wording changes which sucks.

I imagine this is a common situation for small time website developers. For
example if I make a site for the local pizza delivery, they might need to
change their menu, but it is good if they can do it directly. But I like to
host it as a static site so I know it is less likely to get hacked or be slow,
and I can back it up more easily (looking at you Wordpress+MySQL+Bunch of PHP
files called plugins).

------
ignoramous
Super nice. Despite presence of weebly, gumroad, shopify, squarespace, carrd
et al, there is something missing that would put the rest of world on web, I
feel; much like how WhatsApp has replaced most modes of personal communication
in one fell swoop over the years, and how Twitter has taken over micro-
blogging (key point: Both are free).

To do that, I guess, 1mb or similar businesses could add capability to create
a website, post to it, update it via something as ubiquitous as WhatsApp, kind
of like a Tumblr or posterous clone; add ability to accept payments, sell
things.

Curiously, among my friends, telegram is used to consume content. They
subscribe to telegram-channels and simply search for content posted and browse
it right from the app. Much like how YouTube has replaced games, and Instagram
has replaced Facebook, telegram in a sense has replaced Google/Browser.

Perhaps, someone needs to invent a new kind of web that is in symbiosis with
WhatsApp or these other very popular apps. I guess that is exactly what Meesho
[0] is doing, but not quite? May be some business like 1mb will figure it all
out.

[0]
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/meesho/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/meesho/)

~~~
voltagex_
WhatsApp is aggressively anti automation unless you're a big business. I'd
definitely go for updates via email, though.

~~~
lucasverra
Whatsapp is opening it's biz API [0], hence founders are publicly speaking
against it [1]. If you are big you get it first indeed.

[0]: [https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp](https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp) [1]:
[https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-
act...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-acton-says-
facebook-used-him-to-get-its-acquisition-past-eu-regulators/)

------
IgorPartola
Looks sweet. I might actually use this. A few questions:

1\. Why a custom JS-based CLI tool for deployment? What does it do? Why not
something like plain SSH?

2\. What is the plan for this? Presumably you'll want to monetize the project?
Will you ever add ads to my sites? Or will you offer premium features?

3\. What's the reason for the NoSQL DB?

4\. Your CLI tool only allows .png files as images. Is there a reason you
don't allow any other types?

5\. Is there a limit on the number of sites you can have or the storage you
can use?

~~~
1mbsite
1\. This tool allows you to deploy all files in your directory to your site.
If you were using the API directly you’d need to deploy each file
individually. 2\. It was monetized in the past but Gumroad banned my account
because they consider web hosts to be a risky business. I’m re-implementing
Pro soon (more info: [https://pro.1mb.site](https://pro.1mb.site)) 3\. It just
seemed like the most logical way to store and retrieve data with JavaScript.
4\. It’s coded by a friend of mine but I’ll pass that feedback along! Thank
you 5\. Only 1 site per account. There is a 1 megabyte storage limit. I know
it sounds crazy but most users don’t even come close. Pro users get 1
gigabyte.

~~~
so_tired
Can u tell about your experience getting banned?

Were u allowed to withdraw your balance? What r u switching too?

~~~
1mbsite
They banned me without warning and refunded all my customers and I wasn’t
impressed. After reaching out they refunded me all the money I lost though.
I’m studying my choices

------
evanwaltersdev
I love this service, and I have used it from the start. Whenever I see these
free services offering freedom and creativity I see easy opportunity for
abuse. I hate visiting a free service to see a note left behind from the
developer - "sorry, we were flooded with spam and I had to wipe the
database/shutdown the service". What plans do you have in place to prevent
this from happening. All I can think of when I see free web hosting is "how
long will this one last". Explain to me why I should place my trust in this
not shutting down in the next couple of years :)

~~~
1mbsite
I have automated filters coded to help with spam and other abuse. I’m also
recruiting volunteer moderators as we speak. Another reason you can trust that
1MB won’t shut down anytime soon is that it’s a profitable business and I’m
passionate about building it.

------
stemuk
The service itself is really cool and lines up nicely with the likes of
Netlify and Github pages. I have two concerns though:

1) This doesn't seem to be connected to any major company, so how are you
going to handle abuse of the service? With 'free hosting' offerings like this
often comes a wave of abuse and malicious actors, so dealing with them is
going to take significant resources.

2) How are you planning to monetize the service? Even though most sites hosted
wont exceed a few kb, hosting fees will quickly add up, and unless you are
using a cheap bare metal server you will likely face significant monthly
bills.

These concerns aside, the service looks really awesome for most personal blog
use cases, so congratulations to a successful launch!

~~~
1mbsite
1\. For the past half year I’ve been moderating the site myself and also have
automated filters I’ve coded. I’m recruiting some volunteer moderators soon!
2\. 1MB was monetized in the past but got banned by our payment processor
because they consider web hosting to be a risky business. It’s honestly my own
fault I should’ve read the terms. 1MB will be monetized again soon when I
implement a new payment processor:
[https://pro.1mb.site](https://pro.1mb.site)

~~~
nickpsecurity
Here's a list of payment processors that was on HN earlier today:

[https://startupstash.com/paypal-
alternatives/](https://startupstash.com/paypal-alternatives/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19771573](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19771573)

Just dig into each that might fit your situation looking for people's props
and gripes about them. Edited to add the HN link since commenters mentioned
other services.

------
chris_st
Wow, this is fantastic -- can't count the number of "free hosting" sites that
are disappointing because they don't have a database. Well done! I may try it
out.

~~~
basetop
What's the point of having a database for a static site though?

~~~
zimpenfish
1\. To store the site content in 2\. To store metadata that gets integrated
into the generated site 3\. To record stats/metadata about the site generation

There's probably other scenarios people can think of.

------
1mbsite
If you want to upgrade your account check out:
[https://pro.1mb.site](https://pro.1mb.site) \- For a one-time $100 payment
you’ll get access to 1MB Pro forever and help support an indie project.
Monthly cost will be $5 a month when I implement my new payment processor.
Until then only lifetime purchases are possible.

~~~
jordache
lifetime for as long as the developer decides to maintain the service?

~~~
1mbsite
The combination of revenue between lifetime and monthly subscriptions actually
far outweigh hosting costs after I hit an easily obtainable customer number.
Granted I’ll need to scale my server in time this is actually a sustainable
business / I understand being skeptical of “forever”. If you were paying $5 a
month it would be $60 a year, in under 2 years you’re already making your
money back

~~~
stanmancan
It’s rarely about the cost and more about the level of effort to maintain said
service. Without a plan in place it’s hard to accept “it Shouldn’t lose money”
as valid proof that you won’t grow bored of this in 1...2...5...10 years.
Also, more lucrative things may come up and take up your time, making running
this current service unappealing or impossible.

~~~
1mbsite
My point is $100 is about a year and a half of monthly 1MB Pro payments, so
you only need to bank on 1MB lasting a year and a half at least not “forever”
to get your money’s worth (and you’re supporting an indie project). Anyways
I’ve added a disclaimer: “Forever or for the life of the project. 1MB isn't
going anywhere, but we also can't predict the future. No refunds!“

------
wybiral
I haven't tried this yet but it reminds me of the spirit of GeoCities.

For years now I've been hoping that one day the wheel of internet trends will
roll back around and make personally-designed webpages a thing again instead
of this bland "social media" landscape.

~~~
krupan
Check out neocities.org

------
t0astbread
This looks super cool! And I love that this is run by an indie dev and not
some VC-backed startup or big corporation.

Definitely bookmarking this so that I can come back to it and see what I can
build once I have time.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :)

------
sachkris
Awesome service! Thanks for making it available.

A small comment: In the 'Edit Site' page, the preview is reloading with every
keystroke. Would it be better to make it refresh on the click of a button?

~~~
1mbsite
I wanted it to be live feedback, but it is kind of distracting. I’ll add that
to my development roadmap! Thanks for using my service :)

------
logandk
Awesome work, I will introduce this to my kid. With the built-in database/kv-
store and excellent UX, I can't think of a better platform to get started with
web development.

~~~
1mbsite
How does your kid like 1MB?

~~~
logandk
He's mostly concerned with the learning curve of HTML and CSS, so I'd say that
it's a success so far - no tooling got in the way of his learning. We haven't
gotten to using the database yet...

------
Zhenya
This is great and incredibly useful.

Quick note:

Google sites requires 2 nameservers and because of that I am not able to point
the site to my domain.

------
tomglynch
Love the simplicity and custom domains. I often use glitch [1] but will give
1MB a go as custom domains is difficult with Glitch.

Side note, your footer on mobile is missing some items unless you release you
can swipe across - which is not obvious.

[1] [https://glitch.com](https://glitch.com)

~~~
1mbsite
It’s a horizontal scrolling menu by design let me think of how to make it more
obvious, as I see what you mean

------
tgsovlerkhgsel
Looks great! Please make a plan how to deal with abuse; in the past, most
services that provided low-friction hosting stopped being low friction (e.g.
they started requiring login with a facebook account), presumably to cut down
on abuse (like phishers creating lots of accounts to host phishing sites).

~~~
1mbsite
In the past I ended abuse by adding that recaptcha to registration form. I’m
recruiting volunteer moderators as we speak :)

~~~
nkozyra
That may stop automated abuse but ultimately that's less of a concern.

------
bikamonki
What if one of your users gets lucky and traffic goes huge for one site?
Everybody else gets 503's? Have you planned/designed for such scenario?

~~~
1mbsite
I have a fair use bandwidth policy. You can’t abuse it.

~~~
bikamonki
You mean: if passed certain traffic threshold a particular site gets
automatically blocked, or, you hope your users will be fair?

Let's say that given your service is free and with custom domain, a journalist
uses it to publish 100k worth of revealing docs in whistlerblower.com. Then a
government acts and directs a DDOs to it. What will happen to that site? To
other sites?

------
mprev
Cool! But I can’t see anything on the site about who is behind this. Did I
just miss it or is it missing?

Especially when a service is free, I want to know a little about who I’m
getting involved with.

Edit: what’s the deal with the downvotes? It’s entirely reasonable to ask who
is behind a service.

~~~
1mbsite
Hello my name is Dalton Edwards and I’ve been building this project for over
half a year. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clearer (I do link to my personal
site in the footer). I’ll write a bio about myself on the homepage.

~~~
mprev
Hello :) thanks. I’m excited by the project and I think transparency is
important.

------
sandGorgon
Three suggestions:

1\. please dont have "forever" pricing. i would rather pay a higher fee
monthly.

2\. please have tiers according to size and bandwidth requirements

3\. Instead of creating your own cli, etc. Could you integrate with Gatsbyjs ?
In fact, your killer feature could be a wysiwyg editor for Gatsby

I would strongly prefer an open standard like Graphql over a custom nosql you
have. You can implement it at your end using something like
[https://hasura.io/](https://hasura.io/) or something.

this is killer if it happens. You are basically netlify+gatsbyjs+contentful
rolled into one. I could never figure out why netlify and contentful dont
support the features of the other.

~~~
unicornporn
> please dont have "forever" pricing. i would rather pay a higher fee monthly.

Well, I would disagree. Forever pricing would be awesome.

~~~
A2017U1
I've gotten forever accounts with shodan and a very popular vpn service, I was
half expecting the service quality to at least diminish after a year or two
around the positive return mark but didn't happen. They've outperformed my
expectations dramatically.

------
markdown
This forum thread scares me:
[https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930](https://forum.1mb.site/?t=1556326142930)

GET requests never affecting state is backend web dev 101.

------
homero
There's nothing like this even though it seems like there is. Great job.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :)

------
Procrastes
This is very cool! I'm currently using Netlify to host tiny sites for non
profits and local candidates. I love Netlify, but this would be an interesting
alternative. Being able to edit in the browser could also be a big deal to
allow some of them to edit their own pages. Netlify has forms but they are
pretty limited (100 submissions per month on the free plan). I'll definitely
give you a try when the next one comes around. Being able to store a little
data is another really big plus.

------
Lerc
Is the 1MB name a reference to data limit? I couldn't see anything saying so
but that's what sprang to mind.

I like it. Some people have expressed concerns about yet another platform
which holds your data. I don't actually have a problem with that as long as
you can leave without being penalized. A good way to alleviate those concerns
might be a feature where you could download all of your site data along with a
guide to setting it up self hosted.

~~~
1mbsite
You get 1MB of storage. Don’t be discouraged though most users don’t even come
close to using it all. You can delete all your data from my server at any
time.

------
wazoox
It displays as garbage on my system (Linux, Firefox 66.0.3):
[https://screenshots.firefox.com/loCbaBtgGVqoUYeh/1mb.site](https://screenshots.firefox.com/loCbaBtgGVqoUYeh/1mb.site)

somewhat better with Chromium but weird nonetheless:
[http://i.imgur.com/1IbVXEQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/1IbVXEQ.png)

~~~
1mbsite
I’m at a loss for words does anybody else want to weigh in?

------
badsectoracula
Why is it called 1MB? Is it a reference to the maximum storage you get? It'd
be interesting for size optimized sites.

Also are the sites supposed to look that big?
[https://i.imgur.com/QIRNATC.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/QIRNATC.jpg) (sorry for
shitty photo quality, my phone is ancient... i took a photo instead of a
screenshot to show how big it looks physically)

~~~
1mbsite
It’s called 1MB because free members get 1 megabyte of storage. You build your
site from scratch or use a template. That’s just how I chose to make my site
look

~~~
badsectoracula
So i tried it out: [https://badsector.1mb.site/](https://badsector.1mb.site/)
(this is something i made a few years ago, i didn't make it now :-P)

The UI looks a bit too big on my monitor, but other than that it is nice for
small stuff. I think it needs some way to upload multiple files from the
browser via upload dialog and/or dragdrop (like imgur does, for example).

Also i found the editor autocompleting the closing tag very annoying! Also a
bit annoying was the "smart" autoindentation (autoindent is fine of course,
but trying to be smart clashes with how i'd indent things).

Anyway, good luck with it :-).

------
rammy1234
I want to upgrade and support this project. But I am not sure if this is a
scam :) should I wait before doing this ? Any thoughts ?

~~~
1mbsite
This project is ran by a guy named Dalton (me), not by some big company with
lots of funding. When you upgrade to Pro you’re helping offset hosting costs
and validating the countless hours I spend developing this project. 1MB has
been featured on Product Hunt twice:
[https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite](https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite)
&
[https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite-v2](https://producthunt.com/posts/1mbsite-v2),
has over 300 followers on Twitter
[https://twitter.com/1mbsite](https://twitter.com/1mbsite), and is hosting
over 1,100 sites at the time of writing. What’s my point? 1MB is trusted by
many :)

------
ficklepickle
I have been looking for something like this! My use case is a minimal CMS
back-end and admin interface.

Basically adding some dynamic content to a otherwise static site that the
user(s) can change themselves.

The 1mb site would be an admin interface for changing the content in the DB,
the 1mb DB serving the content to the front-end hosted elsewhere.

I'll have to try this out. Very cool.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :) I hope you like 1MB

------
rocky1138
I love this so much. I would be so happy if this kicked off another round of
blogs and brought us back to the sharing economy.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :) that would be awesome and anything is possible when it’s this
easy to get online

------
markussss
This looks really cool! It seems like it's just what I've been looking for
lately, without realizing it. Will look more into this when I get back from
vacation. Thanks for sharing and showing.

------
aurora72
Looks succinct and minimalistly practical. Is it totally open-source in the
sense that I can replicate the 1mb.site on my own server using 3-4 the repos
published on Github?

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! You can’t self-host 1MB, but we do offer some open source software
on our repo at [https://GitHub.com/1MB](https://GitHub.com/1MB)

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
Very refreshing to see a come back of simple, static websites.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you!

------
deadbeef404
I tried using this today. I couldn't find a way to rename the site I signed up
for; I didn't make the connection that the username would be the URL/site
name. I also couldn't delete my primary site to create a replacement, so I had
to close my account just to create a site with a new name. Just thought I'd
let y'all know a minor inconvenience I ran into.

~~~
1mbsite
I’ll make it more obvious on registration that the name can’t be changed :)
I’m sorry about that. I’d add a username change option but it would actually
require a lot of updates to the backend

------
nickodell
Am I supposed to see something here?

[https://i.imgur.com/WNBbIep.png](https://i.imgur.com/WNBbIep.png)

~~~
1mbsite
“Securely access a NoSQL database using nothing but JavaScript

With permissions, enforced fields, and the ability to get the logged in 1MB
username you can easily create a dynamic application. Check out chat.1mb.site
and forum.1mb.site which are both applications that utilize a 1MB database.

Click here to read the API documentation.” looks like inspect element lol

------
girst
This looks really neat! Seems perfect for those set-and-forget, single purpose
type websites. Maybe I'll move [https://xkcd.wtf](https://xkcd.wtf) over to
you!

The only question is: how long will you be able to run this? There have been
so many free webhosts that shut down over night, my confidence in any hosting
project is limited

~~~
1mbsite
I’ve been running 1MB for over half a year and it’s my passion project. I’m
constantly improving and adding new features to it. 1MB makes money from Pro
upgrades it’s just temporarily unavailable. I want to run this project for
years to come. [https://pro.1mb.site](https://pro.1mb.site)

~~~
peter_d_sherman
Love it!

Also, you said the magic words...

What are the magic words? Are they "Abracadabra", "Alakazam" or "Open Sesame"
perhaps?

No.

The magic words are: "Passion Project".

In any marketplace, there are 800lb Gorillas, medium players, and "Passion
Projects".

I tend to root for the "Passion Project", having several of my own.

I mean, this is America, right, many of us root for the underdog, right?

Good luck with your "Passion Project"! May it grow and grow! (Also, realize
that as it does, it will attract more and more criticism -> criticism =
_barometer of fame_ and _indicator of success_ , that's criticism's secret
identity, just so you know in advance! <g>)

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :)

------
otterpro
I had a similar idea, with storage limit of a classic 1.44MB floppy disk.
Imagine an entire website which fits in a floppy disk.

------
nvusuvu
Could this be used to create a niche CRM? I've got someone asking me to
develop a CRM for them in their business domain.

~~~
1mbsite
I’m not entirely sure what you mean, but if you can build it with JavaScript
and a NoSQL database than yes :)

------
lukevp
Could you contrast this with Netlify? I believe they are in the same segment
but I haven't used either.

~~~
1mbsite
As far as I’m aware Netlify doesn’t offer a code editor in your browser. 1MB
is geared towards simplicity but is able to be technical also.

~~~
itake
I haven't personally used it, so I don't know its limits, but Netlify offers
an OSS CMS tool that you have to setup and configure yourself on your own
static site.

[https://www.netlifycms.org/](https://www.netlifycms.org/)

~~~
1mbsite
Boils down to the same answer as GitHub+Hugo argument. No installation
required to use 1MB

------
ilaksh
Congratulations on your HN success.

Having that built in DB is a killer feature to me.

Does the DB prevent hackers from overwriting keys?

~~~
1mbsite
1MB databases with public write permissions don’t let you overwrite keys :)

------
tobyhinloopen
[https://an.1mb.site](https://an.1mb.site)

"I'm An ..."

You're a what?

~~~
wccrawford
An. It's a name.

Though I'll admit I was confused as well until I saw the twitter handle.

------
piyush_soni
Nice work! A small question: even though I'm a real person always logged in on
Google, the recaptcha you've used makes me click few photos for free ... Is it
a setting you control when you put that plugin in your website, or Google does
everything itself?

~~~
dsl
No, site owners do not control what challenge you receive from Recaptcha.

~~~
piyush_soni
Yeah, my question was more about 'how many' than 'what'. There is no question
Google doesn't think I'm not a real person, it still shows me two to three
pages of image clicking making me its worker robot for free.

------
fullstackjob
Great service. Use it since it's online for my little Job Board Listing:
[https://altafino.1mb.site/](https://altafino.1mb.site/) Up in seconds, easy
if you know basics of html.

------
naveen99
If you can make a chat app, I am not sure you need to say static, it’s static
+ optionally dynamic.

Looks good.

~~~
1mbsite
I refer to it as static hosting because even when using a 1MB database you’re
querying it with JavaScript. Also databases are a new addition to 1MB so I’m
at this weird crossroads where I don’t know if it’s static hosting anymore.
Thank you!

~~~
triangleman
You might consider hitching your wagon to the term "JAMStack"... I have been
playing with Hugo and the experience is great.

------
indigodaddy
Very cool default site page...! (Eg your page not found page or putting IP in
browser)

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you :)

------
faton
How does it work in terms of security? If I make my sites' database writeable
by authenticated users, doesn't in mean that any authenticated client can send
a request to delete all records?

~~~
1mbsite
The db-delete endpoint always requires your API key no matter if read or write
permissions are enabled.

------
craftinator
I tried to deploy a Hugo static site to 1mb, and while it rendered fine on
localhost, it would display text only on 1mb. Is this feasible, and what could
I be doing wrong?

~~~
1mbsite
1MB doesn’t support directories at the time of writing.. did your Hugo site
make use of directories? Or another thing I can think of is if you’re trying
to make a single page site make a 200.html file (it’ll replace index.html and
all requests to nonexistent files will go to 200.html)

~~~
craftinator
Thank you for getting back to me! It is definitely caused by directories; I
didn't see anything about that in the 1mb documentation (or skimmed and missed
it), so I figured I just had settings wrong. Thank you!

------
indigodaddy
Any sort of git/GitHub integration features (or planned) ? Eg, I saw mention
of code/theme editor, and working git into that would make some sense.

~~~
1mbsite
How would that Git implementation look to you?

~~~
mrweasel
I think most would expect to just have a remote Git repo where you can push
your site to. That would then do a checkout on the web server automatically.

~~~
dovyski
Precisely this! 1MB is perfect for a small "hosting" company putting other
small companies online, e.g. John's bakery. A git deploy functionality would
drastically improve automation to manage websites. I know the provided cli can
do it, but it's a other thing to integrate.

------
1mbsite
Pro members can host up to 5 websites per account now :)
[https://pro.1mb.site](https://pro.1mb.site)

------
_fizz_buzz_
Dang, this is awesome. I love everything about this.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! Hope you find 1MB useful :)

------
zoom6628
Looks great. Now on my to-do list to build something using it. Well done and
wish you every success with this as a business.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! I really hope you find 1MB useful :)

------
CriticalCathed
This is really fucking cool.

~~~
1mbsite
Thank you! :) it’s a project built with lots of love

------
iamcreasy
Looks nice. But what does it provide over Github/GitLab pages?

~~~
1mbsite
If you don’t understand Git you can use 1MB. When you log in you get access to
a code editor in your browser. It has lots of features to help get you online
fast. 1MB is meant to be an easy to use tool, but it does offer advanced
deployment options too via API and CLI. Also it has a NoSQL database unlike
GitHub and GitLab Pages.

------
ollran
Have you considered using OpenID authentication?

------
joshmn
I don't know why everyone is being so negative in the comments so far. It's
really discouraging to other people who want to share something they made. It
makes me sad.

OP: This is cool. It's not meant to replace Netlify or GH Pages or a million
other things, and I understand that. Some people just want to make something
and you made something. You've done more than so many people here by just
releasing something and that's something to take great pride in. I don't have
a use for it personally, but I think it's really cool and I took a look at the
code to see what was going on. I found it neat.

Ignore and excuse everyone that's expecting a multi-million dollar product
from you.

Everyone else: If you're genuinely asking "what's the point of this?" or
"why's it free? who are you? why should I trust you?" or "what does this do
that Netlify or GH Pages doesn't" — let's get real for a minute: Not
everything is meant to compete with these services, or any service. There are
a hundred-thousand products that exist on the internet with very happy users
that you and I have never heard of. This bias that everything needs to be "the
one" that we all use is discouraging, isn't the goal of this community, and
isn't in the hacker spirit. It's fine to be skeptical and curious, but don't
be a downer or shame.

This is show and tell: Timmy brought a rock he thinks is cool, Cassie brought
her mom's diamonds, and Shaun brought a 2Pac album. Don't yuck other people's
yums.

~~~
drak0n1c
That’s a good point - the attitude of “how is this any better than X, just use
X” is one of the reasons why the web is so centralized.

~~~
superkuh
The reason why the web is centralized is that people use other people's
computers to host instead of their own. Everyone has a multi-megabit home
connection now. Hosting a simple static site is easy and works well.

If this 1MB free hosting ever became popular enough it'd be just as bad as all
the other centralized sites.

~~~
reificator
> _Everyone has a multi-megabit home connection now._

Uh... Down maybe. Up... We're not quite there yet. Rural America (sometimes
just a few miles outside a major city) can have <5meg down and under 0.5meg
up. During non-peak hours that is.

~~~
badsectoracula
Also, sadly, many ISPs dislike you serving stuff from your own home.

------
pcdoodle
Great job!

------
lobsterloga
Hard to see what this offers beyond a simple GitHub+Hugo combo.

~~~
1mbsite
For starters unlike Hugo you don’t have to install 1MB

------
HNKingpin
What can you really do with 1 megabyte? Clearly nothing serious. Why suggest
it's free then? Neocities provides 1GB which is actually a relevant amount.

~~~
1mbsite
You’re entitled to your opinion. Please check out the featured sites on
homepage. All of them with the exception of some Pro sites (which get 1GB)
were made with only 1MB of storage. Most users don’t even come close to
reaching 1 megabyte. Not to mention you can link to external stylesheets and
scripts...

------
andaci
OVH also offers a 10MB free hosting with Let's Encrypt for every domain,
probably more reliable

~~~
1mbsite
Alright I found the link. OVH’s 10MB plan only has 1 GB of monthly bandwidth
while 1MB’s is unmetered (fair use - don’t abuse). OVH’s 10MB plan doesn’t
give you access to a database while 1MB gives you access to a secure NoSQL
database. In closing they have more storage but they make up for that by
taking away some core functionality that 1MB offers.
[https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml](https://www.ovh.co.uk/domains/start10m_hosting_offer.xml)

~~~
TylerE
Soft promises ("unlimited, don't abuse") make me nervous because they are not
clear.

Is making the front page of HN and doing 50gb in one day "abuse"?

~~~
1mbsite
I’m not going to ban a popular site. I have a fair amount of bandwidth. I’m
only going to ban a site who purposely abuses resources

