Show HN: The best way to run PHP apps

Hi, founder here. We're trying to change the way developers use and manage cloud servers. We'd love any feedback, questions, or feature requests you have.

Thank you!

jmathai2• 13 years ago

I am probably in your target market. We've been running on AWS for 2 years. We use a handful of their services including EC2.

Locally for development we use vagrant.

I need more information on how you can help me save time (not money). What specific thing do you make easier for me?

I think "server management" is too broad. Maybe I don't believe you can really take all the server management off my hands. If I'm wrong I need some proof which I'd be happy to read/watch.

The only concrete feature I get from the home page is monitoring. I assume you can monitor me if/when our host goes down or we're running low on disk space.

I'm genuinely interested in these PaaS options but being 2 years in with some existing architecture I would need to know that it doesn't involve re-architecting anything (maybe it does, in which case I might no longer be interested).

My $.02 - hope it helps.

jsamuel3• 13 years ago

Hi. Thanks for your feedback. We need to improve the site to make these things clearer.

We save you time by configuring servers initially, doing reconfiguration tasks for you, setting up and handling monitoring (e.g. of disk space, cpu, application errors), and taking care of steps that many developers forget. In general, you can take a fresh server, connect it to ServerPilot, do "create an app" through our interface, and then have a production-ready server configured for running your app.

On new servers, ServerPilot installs and configures necessary services for running your apps (nginx, apache, php, mysql), configures a firewall, automates package updates, sets up monitoring, and does a handful of other things like ensuring the system clock is updated and stays updated.

After initial server setup, we provide a web interface and APIs to create and manage apps and databases (which behind the scenes means we reconfigure services), make it easy to deploy SSL certs, and provide ways to monitor your servers and apps.

We've got many more features coming. So, if there's something that you'd like to see us do that we don't do currently, please let us know.

jmathai2• 13 years ago

I wonder if boiling it down into one thing up front would be an easier sell. I understand that it might not be possible but you're basically telling me use my entire infrastructure. It'd be an easier pill to swallow if I could do something to get notifications or something similar. Not sure if that's good advice, just brainstorming.

Btw, we're going through the exact same excercise.

nicework• 13 years ago

Great tool. Great founders.

jamham• 13 years ago

I've worked with Justin for a decade.

We've been using Server Pilot since Justin and co. dropped the Server Pilot demo and are now managing most of our development and production servers with Server Pilot.

Server Pilot makes setting up apps, users and databases painless and focused. Updates, back ups, patches and notifications (both good and bad) now take place in the background. We can now focus on app development and refinement - the stuff we're best equipped to manage.

Show HN: The best way to run PHP apps

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