Bogged down by 🚨 dependency updates? We could consider containerization and self-hosting on the cloud ☁️

[KemingHe]

Hi @wei, referencing #146 and #274, while considering the constant barrage of dependabot PRs, what's your opinion on Docker-izing this app and deploy to GCP Cloud Run with auto-scaling to zero?

The expected dependency maintenance will be near zero (everything minus the env vars is deterministic in the container), and the monthly hosting cost will be around $5.

I know exactly what to do if you are interested and want to explore this route,

of course...after the current cards #295 #68 and #272 (second part, the App Router migration). 😃

[wei]

Hello @KemingHe , thanks for the suggestion!! Could you help me understand how dependency maintenance will be near zero? We don't have to update dependencies with the current deployment either, it's just something we are doing to keep the project in a healthy state.

[wei]

We current use Vercel serverless runtime which has a lot of performance benefits over a dockerized app, are there any advantages dockerized aside have over running on the edge runtime?

[KemingHe]

We current use Vercel serverless runtime which has a lot of performance benefits over a dockerized app, are there any advantages dockerized aside have over running on the edge runtime?

Wow, I did not know that (probably for the best since I shouldn't have access to the deployment details). The way I see it is in the long run, Dockerization allows us to:

1. Keep production running regardless of platform availability (Vercel might pull a Heroku someday),
2. Make app distributable, especially as the tech stack ages and people still need the features but not the learning/contrib experience,
3. One of my GCP apps costs <$2 last month total to host with access from anywhere in the world, no distruptions/maintenance, only downside is the cold start, since container is scaled to 0.

Happy to talk more after fixing the bot's mess of a dep bump. 😄 @wei

[wei]

Great! I'm open to distribute a docker image for ease of self-deployment but low on the priority list.

good point on the Code Starts, this is be a deal breaker for Socialify because GitHub only waits up to 3-4 seconds to load images.

We're actually sponsored by Vercel with a generous tier. We can continue to use it for the foreseeable future and change course if anything changes.

Plus it also comes with branch/pr previews which helps with PR reviews quite a bit. (That's how I caught the Daisy UI change without pulling it down myself)