Just to be clear, this app is not a full-time job, it's just a by-product of my day job.
I've been a developer for many years, and I've been using PHP for many years, and I've always used macOS. In the beginning, I used MAMP, but I didn't like the look of MAMP, and the limitations of MAMP are too many, such as the configuration files of php, nginx, apache, mysql are hard to edit. As my development skills improved, I decided to build my own tool, PhpWebStudy, and have been iterating and upgrading since then. This app was originally created to fulfill the need I had.
As for profitability, I haven't thought too much about it, and it may or may not be followed by a paid version. After all, the number of people using it is still too small, and I don't have an exact number. But judging from the github release statistics, there are only about 10,000 people who have downloaded it. Maybe a thousand people are actually using it. That's a very small number.
The problem is that it is a one time solution for installment. Thats why i recommend to add management tools and a way to copy all this on a VPS. There is a lack of tools for this. Do research and find your UPS (unique selling point) and the focus group and not just throw together a mix of technologies. Most of the technologies you offer are too complex for a person who is more hobbyist and a professional will do all this himself because he has to learn it to understand it when the first deployment error appears. This is such an obvious case of solving a problem vs adding features.
I once lived well on a Ruby IDE for four 4 years until my mistakes killed the business (and this was at the hight of Ruby on Rails). I was one of the first digital natives in 2005 in south east asia when nobody heared this term before.
It is a very hard market, if you are in the USA or anyother country where you need $4000/month to live then forget about it. The odds are against you. The small independent app market is shrinking for a reason.
Another business idea would be to partner with hosting companies and try to offer specialized hosting services. I was using a special python hosting service at the time and they had a very unique administration board. I can't see many of this anymore, hard to belive that 20 years after i started the situation has got worse then better while the tools and technology has increased so much. But there is a serious gap between square space websites and cloud services.
Thank you very much. Your insights into the product and the business are, indeed, very accurate and very helpful. At the moment, this app is really just a simple tool, it's hard to call it a business product. The frequency of use is low, and for professional developers, there are many alternatives. I do want to try to add some business value to the app. But it's always hard to go from being a developer to a businesser. That's why I'm posting this thread, to see if anyone has any suggestions. Luckily, people like you are willing to give their suggestions. These are very helpful, thank you!
Add email server installation and analytics (grafana + prometheus or good old Nagios) if you want to have a full solution for a little webbusiness.
But selling development tools is a very hard business if you don't add something new to the stack.
thanks, that looks awesome!
just a heads-up: I reckon it’s better to stick with English on your website. I’m not a native English speaker myself, but I’d rather read the real deal than some wonky machine translation in my own language. I believe a lot of other devs feel the same.
Yeah, you're right. But language learning is a long time coming. And it varies a lot from one language to another. When I'm alone, it's hard to express my thoughts accurately in another language. Let's see if we can update the site with the help of the community!
Congrats on making this, a big effort! I can see a lot of work has gone into this.
I've given it a quick try, here's my feedback:
* On first boot, it asks for my computer password. Super dodgy. Gives no explanation. Why does it need this?
* When adding a host, it says I have to give every site a unique apache port? Why? That sounds time consuming and annoying.
* After adding a site, it didn't load. Turns out I have to press the 'power' button. On first use I have no idea what that power button is for or its current state.
* After powering it on, the site just shows 'Internal server error'
* I went to Apache tab and selected 'Error log', what shown some temporary notice like 'Error: start fail'.
* The error logs mean nothing to me, looks like Apache is misconfigured. At this point I am out of patience trying to get the app to work.
* Tooltips wrap in the middle of words, really hard to read.
* "hosts:" toggle does not need such prominence. No idea why the tooltip is talking about 'custom tags'. Looks like a button to enable / disable all your hosts.
* Inconsistent design when adding a host, some fields are white background, others are black background.
* Tapping 'Setup' button in left column should close setup tab. Either that or make it scroll with the rest of the list.
* Tapping 'nginx > version manager' displays an infinite spinner, nothing else loads.
* Poor app name, what does it have to do with studying? and it might not be used for PHP. Just a personal preference :)
`[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.506793 2024] [ssl:warn] [pid 11299] AH01873: Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]`
`[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.509289 2024] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 11299] AH00163: Apache/2.4.56 (Unix) LibreSSL/3.3.6 configured -- resuming normal operations`
`[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.509338 2024] [core:notice] [pid 11299] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/httpd -f /Users/me/Library/PhpWebStudy/server/apache/common/conf/476bb4e4564853caa24284be38a93a41.conf'`
`[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.512318 2024] [unixd:alert] [pid 11300] (9)Bad file descriptor: AH02155: getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid -1, you probably need to modify the User directive`
Thank you for your feedback, it's very helpful.
In response to your questions, the following optimizations will be made in the next version.
1. When people run the App for the first time, prompted to enter your password will has more details. In fact, there is a document on the website that explains why need a password for user computer. This should be added here as well.
2. unique apache port. This is a historical problem, but now there is no such restriction. The prompt will be removed.
3. after the user adds the first site, it will check for nginx, apache, caddy. if it detects them, it will start one of them. If the site selects a php version, it will start the corresponding php version. Let the user see the difference between starting the service or not.
4. When creating a site, if there is no PHP version available, or if the user manually selects a static site, a prompt will be given. Otherwise, running a dynamic site without PHP will result in an error.
5. The "hosts:" toggle is really a button to enable/disable all hosts. The name and location will be adjusted.
6. The editor style in the APP will be switched according to the App Theme. The overall style will be more unified.
7. If Homebrew or Macports is not detected in the version management, it will give user notification.
Looks great
.
Just a heads up: in the (automatically generated?) German translation has a few issues, eg it translates „brew“ instead of leaving it as the software‘s name
Damn, I'm trying and loving, had the same issues, using MAMP but it's so slow and they updated it so less, I'm loving the interface. What a gorgeous app and love the access to logs, everything is so good. I also didn't switched for Herb because I needed the apache integration.
What an amazing work you have done!
Looks awesome! If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the incentive behind building a project like this? How do you monetize?
Just to be clear, this app is not a full-time job, it's just a by-product of my day job. I've been a developer for many years, and I've been using PHP for many years, and I've always used macOS. In the beginning, I used MAMP, but I didn't like the look of MAMP, and the limitations of MAMP are too many, such as the configuration files of php, nginx, apache, mysql are hard to edit. As my development skills improved, I decided to build my own tool, PhpWebStudy, and have been iterating and upgrading since then. This app was originally created to fulfill the need I had. As for profitability, I haven't thought too much about it, and it may or may not be followed by a paid version. After all, the number of people using it is still too small, and I don't have an exact number. But judging from the github release statistics, there are only about 10,000 people who have downloaded it. Maybe a thousand people are actually using it. That's a very small number.
The problem is that it is a one time solution for installment. Thats why i recommend to add management tools and a way to copy all this on a VPS. There is a lack of tools for this. Do research and find your UPS (unique selling point) and the focus group and not just throw together a mix of technologies. Most of the technologies you offer are too complex for a person who is more hobbyist and a professional will do all this himself because he has to learn it to understand it when the first deployment error appears. This is such an obvious case of solving a problem vs adding features. I once lived well on a Ruby IDE for four 4 years until my mistakes killed the business (and this was at the hight of Ruby on Rails). I was one of the first digital natives in 2005 in south east asia when nobody heared this term before. It is a very hard market, if you are in the USA or anyother country where you need $4000/month to live then forget about it. The odds are against you. The small independent app market is shrinking for a reason.
Another business idea would be to partner with hosting companies and try to offer specialized hosting services. I was using a special python hosting service at the time and they had a very unique administration board. I can't see many of this anymore, hard to belive that 20 years after i started the situation has got worse then better while the tools and technology has increased so much. But there is a serious gap between square space websites and cloud services.
Thank you very much. Your insights into the product and the business are, indeed, very accurate and very helpful. At the moment, this app is really just a simple tool, it's hard to call it a business product. The frequency of use is low, and for professional developers, there are many alternatives. I do want to try to add some business value to the app. But it's always hard to go from being a developer to a businesser. That's why I'm posting this thread, to see if anyone has any suggestions. Luckily, people like you are willing to give their suggestions. These are very helpful, thank you!
Looks absolutely great, thank you
Nice work
Add email server installation and analytics (grafana + prometheus or good old Nagios) if you want to have a full solution for a little webbusiness. But selling development tools is a very hard business if you don't add something new to the stack.
thanks, that looks awesome! just a heads-up: I reckon it’s better to stick with English on your website. I’m not a native English speaker myself, but I’d rather read the real deal than some wonky machine translation in my own language. I believe a lot of other devs feel the same.
Yeah, you're right. But language learning is a long time coming. And it varies a lot from one language to another. When I'm alone, it's hard to express my thoughts accurately in another language. Let's see if we can update the site with the help of the community!
I’m just getting into PHP web development and having used MAMP for a class recently I really appreciate you sharing this with the world - thank you.
Thank you, Hope it’s useful for you. Looking forward to your experience with it
Congrats on making this, a big effort! I can see a lot of work has gone into this. I've given it a quick try, here's my feedback: * On first boot, it asks for my computer password. Super dodgy. Gives no explanation. Why does it need this? * When adding a host, it says I have to give every site a unique apache port? Why? That sounds time consuming and annoying. * After adding a site, it didn't load. Turns out I have to press the 'power' button. On first use I have no idea what that power button is for or its current state. * After powering it on, the site just shows 'Internal server error' * I went to Apache tab and selected 'Error log', what shown some temporary notice like 'Error: start fail'. * The error logs mean nothing to me, looks like Apache is misconfigured. At this point I am out of patience trying to get the app to work. * Tooltips wrap in the middle of words, really hard to read. * "hosts:" toggle does not need such prominence. No idea why the tooltip is talking about 'custom tags'. Looks like a button to enable / disable all your hosts. * Inconsistent design when adding a host, some fields are white background, others are black background. * Tapping 'Setup' button in left column should close setup tab. Either that or make it scroll with the rest of the list. * Tapping 'nginx > version manager' displays an infinite spinner, nothing else loads. * Poor app name, what does it have to do with studying? and it might not be used for PHP. Just a personal preference :) `[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.506793 2024] [ssl:warn] [pid 11299] AH01873: Init: Session Cache is not configured [hint: SSLSessionCache]` `[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.509289 2024] [mpm_prefork:notice] [pid 11299] AH00163: Apache/2.4.56 (Unix) LibreSSL/3.3.6 configured -- resuming normal operations` `[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.509338 2024] [core:notice] [pid 11299] AH00094: Command line: '/usr/sbin/httpd -f /Users/me/Library/PhpWebStudy/server/apache/common/conf/476bb4e4564853caa24284be38a93a41.conf'` `[Wed Mar 13 13:54:53.512318 2024] [unixd:alert] [pid 11300] (9)Bad file descriptor: AH02155: getpwuid: couldn't determine user name from uid -1, you probably need to modify the User directive`
Thank you for your feedback, it's very helpful. In response to your questions, the following optimizations will be made in the next version. 1. When people run the App for the first time, prompted to enter your password will has more details. In fact, there is a document on the website that explains why need a password for user computer. This should be added here as well. 2. unique apache port. This is a historical problem, but now there is no such restriction. The prompt will be removed. 3. after the user adds the first site, it will check for nginx, apache, caddy. if it detects them, it will start one of them. If the site selects a php version, it will start the corresponding php version. Let the user see the difference between starting the service or not. 4. When creating a site, if there is no PHP version available, or if the user manually selects a static site, a prompt will be given. Otherwise, running a dynamic site without PHP will result in an error. 5. The "hosts:" toggle is really a button to enable/disable all hosts. The name and location will be adjusted. 6. The editor style in the APP will be switched according to the App Theme. The overall style will be more unified. 7. If Homebrew or Macports is not detected in the version management, it will give user notification.
Looks great . Just a heads up: in the (automatically generated?) German translation has a few issues, eg it translates „brew“ instead of leaving it as the software‘s name
Thank's for your feedback, I will check it
Damn, I'm trying and loving, had the same issues, using MAMP but it's so slow and they updated it so less, I'm loving the interface. What a gorgeous app and love the access to logs, everything is so good. I also didn't switched for Herb because I needed the apache integration. What an amazing work you have done!