$36/mo for 2/4/50 VPS without public IP... Ok, I get the idea that the service is for non-regular use, but I think even $0.005 per hour ($3.6/mo) of suspended state is too expensive. The same config in Hetzner is just $4.09/mo for 24/7 working VPS with public IPv4 address
Have fun racing to the bottom. If I can get an unsuspended VM at 5$ a month, the suspendable one has to be significantly faster or significantly cheaper. Then again, take my gnawing with a boulder of salt for I will not be a customer. I have my own server that is running 24/7 already.
Yeah this is a cool idea but the pricing is way too high. For anything I would use this for I could just set up any VPS from any provider for cheaper and it’s stateful in the sense that it’s my own VPS and my files/applications/tmux sessions/whatever will be there the next time I SSH in.
The UX here seems really nice, but after spending a couple minutes setting up the VPS, I essentially get the same UX (aka just ssh in and so stuff).
I’d potentially be willing to pay some premium over a standard VPS, but certainly not a 10x premium…honestly probably not even 2x.
Not sure about the security sandbox, but given that paddle.com (your payment provider) takes 5% cut you could consider accepting lightning (bitcoin layer2) payments. QR code generation for lightning invoice is instantaneous just as payment, and will cost less than 0.1% fee (payer pays fee anyway). But the security sandbox should be solid, else it will be used for illegal stuff.
This is fascinating idea. I created an idea like this on top of firecracker and custom golang ssh client to build something like this for my own personal use case (the abstraction part of pricing and how to connect it seemed the more difficult part for me atleast)
What stack does this use underneath?
Good luck with launch, this idea is similar to railway in terms of pricing model. I discussed about it a few comments back and I think its an interesting idea and we are seeing alternatives within such pricing model
Also are you using some cloud provider itself or building it yourself, I'd be interested in so many details to discover
Have a nice day and looking forward to ya response! Good luck with your project!
This is all written in python and the AsyncSSH package. Firecracker for VMs with memory mapped files for ram. Paddle for billing. Caddy as a reverse proxy for certificates.
It works on top of very large bare metal instances.
I'm thinking maybe open sourcing but it will take some more work on the code to make it publishable w/o embarrassing myself :)
I am interested in which bare metal instances from which provider are you using if I may ask since I had a similar idea (as mentioned before) and I wanted to deploy it on hetzner but I was always worried that hetzner's policy might be too harsh for it even though they are one of the cheapest options out there
Which server provider did you end up using?
Thanks once again for your in depth response, these are the things I come to hackernews for! cheers and looking to ya response
Do you do something similar to the modifications codesandbox has done to firecracker, regarding mmap ram? (They have multiple blogposts about it on their blog)
Pretty sure shellbox.dev has been around for at least 2-3 years though - EDIT nm they have a show HN from two days ago. I must be thinking of a similarly named/sounding service
I've been trying to come up with a hypothetical use case for this. I can't use this as a server without keeping an active session right? I wonder if you could get around this by sshing into itself from inside the primary session. Is that an edge case you've considered?
Maybe this and other future extended features could be configured via some host-accessible mounted conf.d? Otherwise if I forget to use that command on every login, I might just forget, logout, and go on thinking my server is still running.
But why? Genuinely want to know what one might use this for. I can imagine it would be cool for a remote dev environment but the selling point would have to be that it’s far cheaper than the alternative.
$36/mo for 2/4/50 VPS without public IP... Ok, I get the idea that the service is for non-regular use, but I think even $0.005 per hour ($3.6/mo) of suspended state is too expensive. The same config in Hetzner is just $4.09/mo for 24/7 working VPS with public IPv4 address
Hi, That is a good point actually. The suspended price has to be significantly lower than the alternative. I'll revise it.
Still, there is the advantage of simplicity not having to deal with the web console etc. Some people may enjoy this
Have fun racing to the bottom. If I can get an unsuspended VM at 5$ a month, the suspendable one has to be significantly faster or significantly cheaper. Then again, take my gnawing with a boulder of salt for I will not be a customer. I have my own server that is running 24/7 already.
Yeah this is a cool idea but the pricing is way too high. For anything I would use this for I could just set up any VPS from any provider for cheaper and it’s stateful in the sense that it’s my own VPS and my files/applications/tmux sessions/whatever will be there the next time I SSH in.
The UX here seems really nice, but after spending a couple minutes setting up the VPS, I essentially get the same UX (aka just ssh in and so stuff).
I’d potentially be willing to pay some premium over a standard VPS, but certainly not a 10x premium…honestly probably not even 2x.
The interesting part here is that the box is stateful, unlike a Lambda. You return literally to the point where you left off.
I think the comparison has to be with EC2 spot right? It feels like EC2 is the better deal, but maybe more of a pain to deal with their UI.
Interesting to compare with Fly's sprites: https://sprites.dev/#billing
One difference other than price is that sprites doesn't seem to use ssh
You can use ssh with a sprite.
Also, they cost less than a shellbox when unused (idle), and more when used.
Not sure about the security sandbox, but given that paddle.com (your payment provider) takes 5% cut you could consider accepting lightning (bitcoin layer2) payments. QR code generation for lightning invoice is instantaneous just as payment, and will cost less than 0.1% fee (payer pays fee anyway). But the security sandbox should be solid, else it will be used for illegal stuff.
This is fascinating idea. I created an idea like this on top of firecracker and custom golang ssh client to build something like this for my own personal use case (the abstraction part of pricing and how to connect it seemed the more difficult part for me atleast)
What stack does this use underneath?
Good luck with launch, this idea is similar to railway in terms of pricing model. I discussed about it a few comments back and I think its an interesting idea and we are seeing alternatives within such pricing model
Also are you using some cloud provider itself or building it yourself, I'd be interested in so many details to discover
Have a nice day and looking forward to ya response! Good luck with your project!
Hi thanks for the interest!
This is all written in python and the AsyncSSH package. Firecracker for VMs with memory mapped files for ram. Paddle for billing. Caddy as a reverse proxy for certificates.
It works on top of very large bare metal instances.
I'm thinking maybe open sourcing but it will take some more work on the code to make it publishable w/o embarrassing myself :)
THanks for your response! as well
I am interested in which bare metal instances from which provider are you using if I may ask since I had a similar idea (as mentioned before) and I wanted to deploy it on hetzner but I was always worried that hetzner's policy might be too harsh for it even though they are one of the cheapest options out there
Which server provider did you end up using?
Thanks once again for your in depth response, these are the things I come to hackernews for! cheers and looking to ya response
Hetzner auction servers, not cloud
Do you do something similar to the modifications codesandbox has done to firecracker, regarding mmap ram? (They have multiple blogposts about it on their blog)
Would love to chat about details there
I have read about it, but currently using vanilla Firecracker w/o any memory optimizations. It is as simple as it gets for now
This looks quite similar to exe.dev which was on here a while ago - anyone know how it compares?
I think exe.dev is subscription. In Shellbox.dev you have funds and pay very little when not connected
Pretty sure shellbox.dev has been around for at least 2-3 years though - EDIT nm they have a show HN from two days ago. I must be thinking of a similarly named/sounding service
Maybe you mean keypub.sh? That is another project of mine with similar graphic design.
I've been trying to come up with a hypothetical use case for this. I can't use this as a server without keeping an active session right? I wonder if you could get around this by sshing into itself from inside the primary session. Is that an edge case you've considered?
This is a feature I want to implement: an option to keep boxes running while disconnected. Maybe with something like
ssh shellbox.dev keepalive box1
Maybe this and other future extended features could be configured via some host-accessible mounted conf.d? Otherwise if I forget to use that command on every login, I might just forget, logout, and go on thinking my server is still running.
The feature can be discussed here: https://github.com/skariel/shellbox.issues/issues/3
> Note: The -O flag is required for OpenSSH 9.0+ to use legacy SCP protocol.
Why isn't SFTP supported?
WIP, this is still in MVP phase...
Is it non-American all the way down?
I was born in Argentina, so technically American, yes ;)
If it is successful then the next region would be in the US
But why? Genuinely want to know what one might use this for. I can imagine it would be cool for a remote dev environment but the selling point would have to be that it’s far cheaper than the alternative.
Simpler, easy to use, more enjoyable and fun are also valid reasons
What’s difficult to use in Hetzner or DigitalOcean?