Buildbox: A Hosted CI service that uses your own infrastructure to run builds

by keithpitt • 13 years ago

41 30 13 years ago

RossM2• 13 years ago

Seems your assets aren't available over SSL which is making the page render plainly.

Looks like a good idea - GitLab CI recently added this to their CI component (builders run separately from the marshalling tool).

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi RossM, Keith from Buildbox here. Can you see https://assets.buildbox.io/assets/logo-2e6cfd9ad9b7c91ffe1e5.... It's working ok for me... Weird.

Soliah• 13 years ago

I'm getting an access denied error on the asset link, but the page seems to load fine for me.

RossM2• 13 years ago

Hi Keith - sorry ignore that, the issue was on my end. Our firewall likes to eat cloudflare requests for some reason.

azov• 13 years ago

Would be nice if the page explained how Buildbox compares with other popular hosted CI tools, e.g. Jenkins (http://jenkins-ci.org)?

pbiggar2• 13 years ago

Any thoughts on how this compares to CircleCI (https://circleci.com - I'm a founder btw)?

opendais• 13 years ago

https://circleci.com/ <- ftfy

krohling• 13 years ago

Sounds like a "behind the firewall" solution to CI versus Circle's cloud model. I can see how it would be interesting to those that are sensitive to the cloud or have complex environment requirements.

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi azov,

Thanks for your feedback! We actually had a page that did that, but we decided to take it down - mainly because we want to finish our product fully before starting to compare ourselves to other solutions :)

Once we're out of beta we can put it back up.

Cheers,

Keith from Buildbox

danial2• 13 years ago

We're in similar space as you. My show HN didn't go that well and just rolled off the new page, so I wanted to make sure you received enough love from HN :)

Why launch in private beta? Why not just let people sign up?

Your landing page looks good and by the looks of the screenshots, your interface looks very clean too.

Curious. Are you a team or is it just you? How long have you been building for?

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi Danial,

We launched a private beta because we still have a heap of screens to style and cleanup, as well as some documentation.

We want to do installations with every one of our customers 1-1 in the beginning to make sure we iron out any kinks.

Thanks,

Keith from Buildbox

gregwebs• 13 years ago

If you are an AWS user then you can start using https://koalitycode.com/

It spins up new AWS instances for you as needed in a few seconds to allow more simultaneous builds. The killer feature of Koality though is it proxies your repo so it blocks bad code from ever getting there.

ssw1n• 13 years ago

So how does it differ from Travis or Jenkins (or any other CI build tool really)?

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi ssw1n!

Travis has chosen a very tight integration with GitHub and you run builds on their servers.

Jenkins is usually a hard thing for most people to setup. It's very old software and the UI hasn't changed in years.

I'm trying to find a middle ground between the two services. I can easily install ruby on a build slave, but trying to manage the build master is always a pain.

rekwah• 13 years ago

Interesting niche for the CI SaaS field as most try and completely replace existing infrastructure.

peterwwillis• 13 years ago

Is it just me, or has the entire Open Source/Free Software movement(s) been replaced by simple proprietary tools "in beta" pushed by profiteering young coders looking to start a micro-business oriented towards their peers? The great majority of these tools could be [and often are] written in a weekend, which is why it confuses me they'd be trying to sell it to someone.

As soon as I see a shiny, polished web page with lots of highlights and no details, I now assume it's a shill for money without any meaningful content. I'm right more often than not. Oh, startup culture!

danial2• 13 years ago

There is room for both.

There are open source alternatives to this service, which a couple of folks on this thread have already pointed out.

However, not all teams are scaled to run and maintain a Jenkins server so there is certainly a need for such services. Often the price point is low enough that I am happy to get myself out of the business of maintaining infrastructure so that I can focus on the product I'm building.

bguthrie• 13 years ago

I could be wrong, but from where I'm standing, it's just you.

Most major web applications built today thrive on a large, active ecosystem of open-source tools. Rails, Django, Play and Compojure all require the active participation of a large community of interested developers to keep them thriving and healthy. The author of the linked tool, who is a good dude, himself has a notable open source track record. I don't see any of this going away anytime soon.

I used to maintain the Ruby version of CruiseControl, the original open-source CI tool. There's plenty of room for everyone here.

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi peter,

Thanks for taking the time to give us some feedback!

Jenknis has been around forever, and probably will be. It's one of those pieces of software that just keeps on going. Like the movie Grease - sure it's rough around the edges, but it's still pretty damn good - and future generations will still watch it.

People will still write these tools in a weekend - and that's totally cool! They don't have to use Buildbox if they don't want to.

There are varying skill levels out there. Some devs are really happy to install Ruby on Ubuntu, but often have gripes installing Jenkins, managing permissions, etc. And for those "young coders" - Jenkins looks very dated. It's very difficult to navigate, and managing plugins is usually a pain.

Buildbox is a middle-ground between managing Jenkins, and having your CI run entirely for you in the cloud by other services.

Cheers,

Keith from Buildbox

coherentpony• 13 years ago

Can it do Mac and Windows builds?

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi coherentpony, we absolutely do Mac builds. We haven't tried a Windows build just yet, but there is no reason why it shouldn't just work!

shaggyfrog• 13 years ago

Does it do iOS builds? If so, how will it compare with the upcoming CI system in OS X Server 10.9/Xcode 5?

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi shaggyfrog,

Yup! We 100% do iOS builds. If you have some spare Apple hardware about the place, you can hook Buildbox up to it, so you can start running your iOS and Mac builds right away!

Cheers,

Keith from Buildbox

tfinch• 13 years ago

If I understand the offering, this is great. The differentiator seems to be the ability to use your current deployment tool to set up the test environment, meaning it's a lot closer to your real production environment.

I recently spent a reasonable amount of time looking for a hosted CI solution that would run the particular version of postgis we use, rather than the 'latest and greatest,' but it seems like a lot of the current offerings have fairly limited flexibility in build environments (understandably I suppose.)

jchonphoenix• 13 years ago

Hey tfinch, check out http://koalitycode.com (founder here). One of our huge value adds is flexibility and we give you sudo access to the machines you use.

I'd love to see if we match your use case and how we can improve. Can you shoot me an email (in my user info) with your thoughts?

Thanks!

keithpitt9• 13 years ago

Hi tfinch,

Thanks for your feedback!

Yup, you're on the money with your assertion. Because Buildbox uses your own infrastructure, you can what ever postgis version you like :)

I'll keep an eye out for you in the beta survey (if you did it) and try to get you on the beta soon.

Cheers,

Keith from Buildbox

cxr344• 13 years ago

Sounds cool, but I'm a little confused on the purported security advantage of your service... maybe I'm just a noob, or I'm missing something, but if this integrates with GitHub, isn't your code already floating around in the cloud somewhere?

Buildbox: A Hosted CI service that uses your own infrastructure to run builds

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