Tomi LΓ€hteenmΓ€kiJun 9, 2024
... (FKA Gergely Nagy 🐁)

Lately, I've been thinking about offering managed #Forgejo hosting, aimed at individuals and small businesses. The goal would be to provide something cheap, but reasonable, rather than something that'd scale way too big.

At this time, however, I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble. I mean, I'd love to see more Forgejo instances, because I'd like to believe that the future is many small instances, rather than a few big ones. But offering such managed hosting comes with significant work, and non-negligible costs, especially if I need to rely on something like Stripe for payment processing.

The exact details are TBD, but this would let you use your own domain, and would include backups, forgejo actions runner, and probably a few other things (cpu, ram, and disk - no idea yet at the moment). The entire stack would be free software, including any tooling I make for supporting the setup.

To help me gauge the viability of this idea, lets run a little experiment: assuming I'd offer managed hosting starting at €25 / month or thereabouts, with more expensive tiers also being available, would you be interested?

Boost appreciated, and feel free to ask about or comment on the idea too. This is just a very early exploration, really.

Yes, I might be interested.
21.3%
No, I would likely not be interested.
50%
Undecided (show me the results)
28.7%
Poll ended at .
Jun 9, 2024 at 11:15amWeb
Show thread... (FKA Gergely Nagy 🐁)Jun 9, 2024

For the record, I'm getting some very good and educational feedback already, thank you! Please keep it coming.

There will be a followup poll once this is over, based on the lessons learned.

Show threadFabian N. T.Jun 9, 2024
@algernon If I had a business, that would be worth considering. For only my personal usage 25€/m would be too much for me. I currently pay/donate about 25€ per year each for Codeberg (public repos) and Sourcehut (private).
Show thread4censord Jun 9, 2024
@algernon I'd probably recommend this to some of my friends, but wouldn't use it myself as i already self-host
Show threadCyborusJun 9, 2024
@algernon Interested, in helping! I've been thinking about how to do this myself for a while too.
Show threadAndreas FrackowiakJun 9, 2024

@algernon The #SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) that I know mostly choose self-hosting because they don't trust #Atlassian, #Github, #Gitlab in terms of stability and protection of their closed source or they have high load requirement.

If you host managed instances for companies, that would in a certain way also be a type of centralization, albeit on a different level than Atlassian, Github, Gitlab, Codeberg.

What would your #Forgejo service do better than #Codeberg, for example?

Show thread... (FKA Gergely Nagy 🐁)Jun 9, 2024

@af For one, Codeberg does not allow hosting non-free software, let alone closed source. While you can create private repositories, hosting closed source there is against the ToS.

With what I'd provide, an SME would be able to (compared to Codeberg):

  • Use their own domain.
  • Not be bound by Codeberg's ToS, and host their own private repositories.
  • I'd provide Forgejo Action runners.
  • Commercial support, if need be (including support for CI).
  • It'd be their instance, with their orgs, users, free for them to customize as they see fit. Branding included.
  • Provide a faster experience than Codeberg (due to size: Codeberg is big, an SME's instance would be much more responsive, simply because there aren't tens of thousands of users and repos).

On top of that, I could, maybe, if there's interest, offer options like sending backups to wherever the SME wants me to send them; or running & managing Forgejo on their infra, so they can 100% own their data, I'd just do the managing part.

Think of it as a bit like toot.io (or masto.host), but for Forgejo.

Show threadAndreas FrackowiakJun 9, 2024

@algernon Ok, hosting non-free/close source would be a big advantage over Codeberg. I think your service could potentially be attractive for this target group.

Maybe it could also be interesting for those who don't care if they use Gitea, Forgejo, Gitlab as long as there is comparable (or better) price, quality and reliability.

Show thread... (FKA Gergely Nagy 🐁)Jun 9, 2024

@af From what I can tell, there aren't many Gitea hosters. Gitea Cloud is priced per user, and I think that pricing model is bullshit, so I'm just... not going to consider that as a comparable thing.

I should've looked at other forge hosters, though, to see how they do their pricing and what they offer. I did that now, and will build that knowledge into a followup poll :)

Show threadjon rJun 9, 2024

@algernon

CC @aral ^^

Show threadUckermark MacGyver Jun 9, 2024
@algernon my thinking would be that any company that doesn't trust the large central hosters would probably just host Forgejo themselves than paying another small 3rd party.
Show thread... (FKA Gergely Nagy 🐁)Jun 9, 2024

@maxheadroom It's not just about trust. The major Forgejo instance is Codeberg, and Codeberg does not allow non-free software, and tries to discourage private repos too.

My managed hosting would offer companies an opportunity to:

  • Use their own domains.
  • Not be bound by Codeberg's ToS, thus, use private repos as they see fit, host as much proprietary code as they wish.
  • Customize their instance as they see fit, including both configuration and theming & branding.
  • Have a likely smoother, more responsive instance (due to size: Codeberg is big, and that often slows it down considerably).

I can very likely offer other optional perks like sending backups to wherever they want, or manage Forgejo on their infra, so they own it 100%.

It's not just about trust. Performance, branding play a larger role, I believe.

Show threadUckermark MacGyver Jun 9, 2024
@algernon are you able to offer contractual service level agreements? Another thing that is very laborious is certifications. At a certain level companies require certifications and/or audits from their suppliers. Offering things like ISO 27001, SOC2 etc. might be a requirement for certain companies.
Show thread... (FKA Gergely Nagy 🐁)Jun 9, 2024

@maxheadroom I should be able to offer contractual SLAs, yes.

Certificates and audits - likely not. My gut feeling is that companies needing those aren't my target audience either. I have no desire to host managed instances for Big Companies. There would likely be more money in there, sure, but also more stress, and I don't need more stress in my life.

Show threadMike Rochefort Jun 9, 2024
@algernon Having set flat rates that aren't user based, and providing dedicated, isolated instances would be really interesting. Getting such instances from GitLab and GitHub has a massive cost requirement, whereas being able to spin up a dedicated server VM with a cluster of CI node that only your org has access to could be enticing. Putting the cost into resources requested rather than per-user is a deviation from the norm that many would appreciate.
Show threadEarl WarrenJun 10, 2024

@algernon a viable business model that does not involve relying on proprietary software was described and an MVP implemented mid 2022.

The latest post in Forgejo on that topic has various links you will be interested to read I think.

https://codeberg.org/forgejo/discussions/issues/72

Turnkey solution for a Forgejo hosting service provider

* There is no Free Software solution to run a Forgejo hosting service provider * A Forgejo instance deployed on AWS, DO etc. cannot be migrated because the infrastructure is proprietary * Forgejo could solve that problem by providing a turnkey solution to run a Forgejo hosting service provider * ...

Codeberg.org
Show threadπ˜‹π˜ͺ𝘳𝘬Jun 11, 2024
@algernon I like the idea, but for that price such a solution could be deployed in-house by the project team without having to rely on a 3rd-party contractor. Forgejo doesn't need much resources and backups are done anyways on filesystem level.