
Containership.io Shuts Down - gouggoug
https://docs.containership.io/en/articles/3354688-containership-shutdown
======
azastrael
Blog post:
[https://blog.containership.io/shutdown/](https://blog.containership.io/shutdown/)

~~~
shoo
> We had to ask ourselves the same questions our customers were asking: “What
> makes us different [from Kubernetes] ?”

> We quickly realized our greatest value was not necessarily at the
> orchestration layer, but rather it was the intuitive multicloud control
> plane we were building (Containership Cloud). Though difficult, we made the
> choice to abandon our work on open source containership, and pivot to
> delivering customers the same sort of experience using Kubernetes.

[...]

> It has been nearly a year and a half since the Containership Cloud
> replatform, and we have failed to monetize Containership Cloud in such a way
> that we could build a sustainable business.

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meddlepal
It is incredibly risky to build businesses on top of small time platforms like
this.

~~~
ignoramous
I want to concur with you but... Would you pls elaborate what is meant by
_small-time platforms_?

~~~
cattlefarmer
Likely something not backed by a corporation with big bags of money.

~~~
olafmol
Like Google ;P

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Animats
At least you get six weeks to move to a different "cloud".

The mean life of cloud services seems be under five years.

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gravypod
Is open sourcing the code base possible? Might be interesting to see how it
was built and give people a chance to self-host this tooling.

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alexbanks
I can assume why, but it seems very intense to say that all cloud operations
will stop a month from now. Since they weren't making money, I would assume
they don't have a ton of users, but still. Just over a month to migrate off?
That seems pretty wild.

~~~
gregmac
This is also one of the reasons these types of businesses are hard: I don't
want to build on a platform that might suddenly set me into fire drill mode
where I have to basically stop all work and port to a different technology.
Going with a startup is always risky.

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kasia66
You can deploy your apps to any existing Kubernetes Cluster or build and
manage a new cluster on any cloud with
[https://www.cloud66.com/(Disclaimer](https://www.cloud66.com/\(Disclaimer): I
work at Cloud 66)

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streetcat1
I am still not sure why you failed?

What was provided beside a GUI on top of the clouds api?

~~~
diego
Failing is really the default for startups. A better question would be, why do
you think you did not succeed. I'm guessing they simply did not make enough
money, which is the norm.

EDIT: if you read the article, they "failed to monetize" so there's your
answer. Because they failed to monetize, it's hard to know what they could
have done differently to monetize.

~~~
streetcat1
Right. So I would like to understand why customers did not pay?

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cwyers
Plenty of people don't pay me money _all of the time._ Most of them aren't
even making a decision to do this, it just never would occur to them to pay me
money.

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par
so was the fatal blow in being effectively replaced by kubernetes? or not
getting to the admin console as a product fast enough?

~~~
phildougherty
A complex combination of factors that touch on timing, investment, strategy,
people, mistakes, and way too many other factors to fit in a HN comment.

