Sidekick
Dev tools
deployment cli
SHOW HN2024
452points
152comments
#87of 3,515 in 2024
Top 3%of 2024 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
27 positive, 23 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 9 critical, out of 61 comments about the project. Thread score +0.37.
Idea: 8 for, 4 againstExecution: 4 for, 0 againstDesign: 2 for, 1 againstDocs: 3 for, 0 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Simple, clean CLI and well-written README
From 3 comments
Very well presented, the README.md looks great.
Canada on HNIts a simple cli in go It uses docker There is no k8s Handles certs Zero down time I would love for it to support docker-compose as some of my side projects needs a library in…
AndrewCopeland on HNWow this is super handy! I have paid tools that function like this for a couple of specific stacks but this seems like an amazing general purpose tool. Considering the ease of…
devmor on HN
Handles TLS automatically
From 2 comments
This is super nice, and I'm a big fan of the detailed readme with screenshots. I'll definitely be trying it out, although I do have a pretty nice setup now which will be hard to…
bluehatbrit on HNLooks great! I similarly got frustrated about the complexity of doing side-project ops stuff and messed around with Kamal, but this goes the extra mile by automatically setting…
spelunker on HN
Good fit for side projects versus heavier tools
From 2 comments
this looks amazing! i’m building https://www.plainweb.dev and i’m looking for the simplest way to deploy a plainweb/plainstack project. looks like sidekick has the same spirit…
joseferben on HNIts a simple cli in go It uses docker There is no k8s Handles certs Zero down time I would love for it to support docker-compose as some of my side projects needs a library in…
AndrewCopeland on HN
Objections
Docker-only framing; 'any app' claim is inaccurate
From 1 comment
"to self-host any app" Docker != app. Perhaps it'd be more accurate to say, "to host any Docker container"?
johnklos on HN
Not highly available on a single VPS; scaling claims questioned
From 1 comment
What about this is highly available? On a single VPS? Does this only support a single app? Nice project but the claims (production ready? Load balance on a single server?) are a…
turtlebits on HN
Encrypting env with sops while keeping age key on the VPS offers little security
From 1 comment
What's the purpose of encrypting the env file with sops, when the age secret key is stored on the VPS? If someone has access to the encrypted env file, they will also have access…
gf297 on HN
Lacks backup and restore and long-term maintenance guidance
From 2 comments
Love this! That said, I achieve the same thing manually using Docker Compose & some shell scripts. It takes a bike longer, but it has forced me to learn the lower level tools…
Humphrey on HNPart of me dies every time I see projects not integrating robust restoring and backup systems.
FloatArtifact on HN
Requests
Database hosting and streaming backups such as Litestream or Barman
From 2 comments
This looks really nice, congrats! 1) I see Kamal was an inspiration; care to explain what differs from it? I'm still rocking custom Ansible playbooks, but I was planning on…
pqdbr on HN1) Kamal is more geared towards having one VPS for project - it' made for big projects really. They also show on the demo that even the db is hosted on its own VPS. Which is…
mightymoud on HN
Docker compose support
From 2 comments
Its a simple cli in go It uses docker There is no k8s Handles certs Zero down time I would love for it to support docker-compose as some of my side projects needs a library in…
AndrewCopeland on HNThanks man! I'm working on the docker-compose support. I got it working locally, but the ergonomics are really hard to get right, cus compose files are so flexible. I was even…
mightymoud on HN
Deploy hooks
From 1 comment
Yup deploy hooks are on my mind. Just didn't put them on Readme. Shouldn't be very hard to implement. Might do this first before docker-compose support.
mightymoud on HN
Authentication or zero-trust access layer
From 1 comment
tools like this are pretty sweet but I would rather just run it myself. docker-compose with a load balancer (traefik) is fairly straightforward and awesome. the TLS setup is nice…
sigmonsays on HN
Questions
How does it differ from Kamal?
From 2 comments
This looks really nice, congrats! 1) I see Kamal was an inspiration; care to explain what differs from it? I'm still rocking custom Ansible playbooks, but I was planning on…
pqdbr on HNGiven the choice of Docker and Traefik I would love to know what's the exact difference to Kamal? And btw Kamal will soon have a new improved version with a custom proxy.
strzibny on HN
Why Docker registry push instead of local builds?
From 1 comment
This could be great for my projects, but I'm confused about one thing: why does it need to push to a Docker registry? The Dockerfile is local, and each image is built locally.…
aag on HN
Can multiple apps run on one VPS?
From 1 comment
Can I run more than one app on the same VPS with this solution? I now run more than one app into one single VPS.
InvOfSmallC on HN
Alternatives named
Kamal
From 2 comments
This looks really nice, congrats! 1) I see Kamal was an inspiration; care to explain what differs from it? I'm still rocking custom Ansible playbooks, but I was planning on…
pqdbr on HNLove this! That said, I achieve the same thing manually using Docker Compose & some shell scripts. It takes a bike longer, but it has forced me to learn the lower level tools…
Humphrey on HN
Dokku
From 2 comments
I'd also suggest people to take a look at Dokku, it's a very mature project with a similar scope and was discussed here a few weeks ago:…
dewey on HNBeen using dokku for probably 8 years now? (or something close to that; it used to be written entirely in bash!) Hosting private stuff on it, and an application at $oldplace…
mimischi on HN
CapRover
From 2 comments
Have used caprover. Good that more tools enter this space.
hkon on HNAlso: Kamal, CapRover
vickodin on HN
Cloudflare tunnel with docker
From 1 comment
I like what I'm seeing, though I'm not sure I have a use case. On a VPS, I'll typically run a cloudflared container and configure a Cloudflare tunnel to that VPS. Then, I can…
4star3star on HN