

Websrvr – Deploy your websites to a CDN using Dropbox - minhajuddin
https://app.websrvr.in/

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xg15
Some questions that come to my mind immediately:

\- Does it share my whole Dropbox with the world? (It doesn't, but I only know
this from reading this thread) If not, which parts of the Dropbox are shared?

\- What kinds of files are published? What MIME types are supported? Can I
somehow override MIME types?

\- How are the files published? Do I get auto-generated URLs on the CDN's
server? Do I have to update my DNS records? Some other way?

\- Are the files cached somewhere? (Other than the CDN) Can I delete them
quickly?

\- How do I remove my account? Is all my data deleted as soon as I remove the
Dropbox connection?

\- And of course the pricing questions: Is it free, will it stay free? Are
there usage restrictions? (Bandwidth, traffic, etc)

The idea of this service seems really cool, as well as the one-click signup.
But I agree with the others that more information before signup is necessary.
I think a tutorial or a FAQ page would be really useful.

(I don't have any experience with Cloudfront, so apologies if some questions
are obvious if you know their service)

~~~
minhajuddin
> Does it share my whole Dropbox with the world? (It doesn't, but I only know
> this from reading this thread) If not, which parts of the Dropbox are
> shared?

No. Even websrvr has access to just an app folder (a newly created folder
inside your dropbox).

> What kinds of files are published? What MIME types are supported? Can I
> somehow override MIME types?

Any file whose name doesn't start with a '.' is published, so all non-hidden
files. Right now, MIME types cannot be overridden, but it sounds like a good
idea, I'll implement it soon.

> How are the files published? Do I get auto-generated URLs on the CDN's
> server? Do I have to update my DNS records? Some other way?

Every folder inside the websrvr app folder is published as an independent
site. You get a unique host for each site. e.g. if you have a folder called
'foobar' with a file called 'index.html', this will be published to
'foobar.websrvr.in/index.html'. The cloudfront integration is not yet live,
since I am still testing the demand for this kind of a product.

> Are the files cached somewhere? (Other than the CDN) Can I delete them
> quickly?

Yes these are cached on our servers, and whenever a file is created we update
our cache, whenever you delete a file in your dropbox it will be deleted from
our cache.

> How do I remove my account? Is all my data deleted as soon as I remove the
> Dropbox connection?

You can select and delete all folders from the websrvr app folder to delete
the data from our servers. Once you do that, you can unlink your dropbox
account from the dropbox website at
[https://www.dropbox.com/account#security](https://www.dropbox.com/account#security)

> And of course the pricing questions: Is it free, will it stay free? Are
> there usage restrictions? (Bandwidth, traffic, etc)

websrvr backed hosting: $1 per month - All the data would be served from our
fast web servers

Amazon S3 backed hosting: $3 per month - All the data would be served from
Amazon S3 servers.

Amazon Cloudfront backed hosting: $10 per month + overage charges - All the
data would be served from the Amazon Cloudfront CDN. If your cloudfront usage
goes above $10 we'll charge the difference in the next month's invoice.

There are more faqs at:
[https://app.websrvr.in/help](https://app.websrvr.in/help)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Why the huge jump between S3 and Cloudfront served hosting? Just market
segmentation?

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tootie
Signup without explanation of features or cost?

~~~
minhajuddin
I wanted to make the signup process as simple as possible. I am looking for a
good way to show the user the pricing and features. Maybe I should show it
after the signup? Thanks for trying it out :)

~~~
brewdad
Why not show it before signup? I'm not giving anyone access to my Dropbox just
because they ask nicely.

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asattarmd
To be fair, it is asking for access to only a folder that itself creates.

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khulat
Yeah, but it doesn't tell you that.

~~~
asattarmd
Dropbox tells you when asking for your permission.

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minhajuddin
Guys, websrvr has been approved for production by the awesome folks at
Dropbox. Signups are open again, woot :)

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zuck9
How is it hosted currently? websrvr's host?

~~~
minhajuddin
In beta, I am hosting it off of a single server. However in production I'll
have a multi data center cluster, if the product is viable :)

~~~
zuck9
Hosting yourself? Or somewhere like DigitalOcean?

~~~
minhajuddin
It's hosted on Digital Ocean.

~~~
zuck9
DO is pretty popular these days.

~~~
minhajuddin
Yeah, I love them, their performance is good too :)

