[Project] Provider recommendations

vitobotta

As some of you may know, I built a tool to create Kubernetes clusters in Hetzner Cloud (https://github.com/vitobotta/hetzner-k3s). This is currently a CLI tool, with no GUI and only supports Hetzner Cloud currently. I am thinking to create a new version with a nice GUI and support for multiple providers, so that you can create cheap multi-provider clusters for redundancy.

Which providers would recommend I started with? Ideally these should have an API to create servers etc, but I might add support for providers without an API as well, although it would be limiting.

Second question is, how much would you charge or be willing to pay considering that such a tool can help you save a lot of money compared to using managed Kubernetes with the 3 big cloud providers?

Thanks for any input!

Amadex

Ionos

chimichurri

Sorry but I'm gonna be a buzzkill..

Which providers would recommend I started with?

Frankly, Hetzner Cloud's bang-to-buck seems to be top notch (esp. with the newly released ARM servers), so I'm not sure that would make any sense - in case you want to do this in order to include more locations that are not covered by Hetzner, then maybe Lightsail? Most other cheap hourly providers I can think of already seem to have their own managed k8s offerings (examples: Vultr, Upcloud, Scaleway) // EDIT: so does the above mentioned Ionos ;P

Second question is, how much would you charge or be willing to pay

$7! But seriously, I'm afraid I wouldn't be willing to pay at all since in general, I like to use a specific tool for what it does best, so I'd rather avoid such cookie-cutter all-in-one solutions! In this case, I'd rather provision the servers using Terraform and deploy Kubernetes using something else (granted, this would not be at parity with your planned tool, because I'd have to manually scale the cluster), or just go with one of the aforementioned cloudy providers that already provide managed k8s (or Civo)

vitobotta

@chimichurri said:
Sorry but I'm gonna be a buzzkill..

Which providers would recommend I started with?

Frankly, Hetzner Cloud's bang-to-buck seems to be top notch (esp. with the newly released ARM servers), so I'm not sure that would make any sense - in case you want to do this in order to include more locations that are not covered by Hetzner, then maybe Lightsail? Most other cheap hourly providers I can think of already seem to have their own managed k8s offerings (examples: Vultr, Upcloud, Scaleway) // EDIT: so does the above mentioned Ionos ;P

Second question is, how much would you charge or be willing to pay

$7! But seriously, I'm afraid I wouldn't be willing to pay at all since in general, I like to use a specific tool for what it does best, so I'd rather avoid such cookie-cutter all-in-one solutions! In this case, I'd rather provision the servers using Terraform and deploy Kubernetes using something else (granted, this would not be at parity with your planned tool, because I'd have to manually scale the cluster), or just go with one of the aforementioned cloudy providers that already provide managed k8s (or Civo)

You would rather "use Terraform" than a nice simple GUI where with a few clicks you get a multi cloud cluster up and running, ready? Interesting.

Freek

Might sound silly, but what about Oracle Cloud? The free tier gives you 4 ARM CPUs and 24GB of RAM that you can divide between servers.

dwight

@Freek said:
Might sound silly, but what about Oracle Cloud? The free tier gives you 4 ARM CPUs and 24GB of RAM that you can divide between servers.

The problem is free means they can take your resources at any time...

chimichurri

@vitobotta said:
You would rather "use Terraform" than a nice simple GUI

Short answer

Explanation

Actual serious answer

It wouldn't have to necessarily be TF, may as well be k8s CRDs ;P I'm quite an ardent IaC (≒declarative config) believer, and up to date have been actively avoiding anything graphical (≒forcing me into ClickOps)! Had I been in need of launching multi-cloud clusters in the first place, I would've been much more interested in your tool supporting more providers if it were to stay the way it is right now (judging from what I saw on GitHub)

Also, please note that my personal preferences are not necessarily a good sample of the overall market (esp. in regard to what may be profitable and what not) - to give you one example, OpenShift on AWS is something that I wouldn't touch with a 10 ft. pole, and yet RedHat seems to be making money with it, so..

TL;DR: You said "Thanks for any input!" so I gave mine - but seriously, don't think about it too much - by now, I've hopefully explained that I am not your target audience! Assuming that demand creates products, based on what's already out there there is a market for GUI tools as well - so, good luck with your project!

AaronSS

I am thinking to create a new version with a nice GUI and support for multiple providers, so that you can create cheap multi-provider clusters for redundancy.

I love this idea!!

AaronSS

The problem is free means they can take your resources at any time...

With k8s not such a concern if done correctly