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0 pointsXCSme5y ago0 comments

Thanks!

Yes, it's a self-hosted platform, so you pay a one-time fee and you can download the product. You then have to upload it to a web server (I use a $5/mo DigitalOcean droplet) and use the auto-installer. There is short installation guide here: https://docs.usertrack.net/installation

If your already have a server running the LAMP stack you can add userTrack to it instead of getting a new server, as it's pretty efficient.

I was planning to also add a hosted (SaaS) variant, but if you think about it, it doesn't really make sense: you can just spin up your own DigitalOcean VPS (for cheaper than I would offer it to you) with a few clicks and have userTrack already installed on it. It's better for you for privacy, cost and performance. I am thus trying instead to educate the public more and promote the self-hosting movement, as nowdays it's really easy to run your own services (Docker, cloud-init and image marketplaces make it very easy to setup a server in a few clicks with the software that you need). I see this as the future, where every person can just run one or more virtual servers with the software that they use, instead of paying large monthly fees to big companies for a worse experience, companies that also sell their private data.

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zomglings5y ago

Have you considered releasing configurations for the VPS setup on the Cloud marketplaces?

I would much rather deploy onto my infrastructure with one click and pay you a few dollars a month than have to set things up myself.

XCSmeOP5y ago

I checked out the DigitalOcean marketplace but it looked like there are only open-source applications there, or it was really confusing how you can publish a premium script there.

That being said, userTrack does provide a cloud-init configuration for one-click install (which works on DigitalOcean for example). So currently, if the VPS provider supports images and cloud-init, you just have to select a LAMP image, paste the userTrack cloud-init and the VPS will spin-up with a functional userTrack dashboard running on it.

I have also considered sharing it as a Docker container, but that makes it slower to install (have to share the full image) and there is again no easy way to share premium Docker images, as you have to host your own Docker repository.

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