ajayvk (u/ajayvk) - Readit News

ajayvk commented on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026) · Posted by u/david927

ajayvk · 6 days ago

Have been building a project https://github.com/openrundev/openrun/ which aims to make it easy for teams to easily deploy internal tools/webapps. While creating new apps has gotten easier, securely deploying them across teams remains a challenge. OpenRun runs as a proxy which adds SAML/OAuth based auth with RBAC. OpenRun deploys containerized apps to a single machine with Docker or onto Kubernetes.

Currently adding support for exposing Postgres schemas for each app to use. The goal is that with a shared Postgres instance, each app should be able to either get a dedicated schema or get limited/full access to another app's schema, with row level security rules being supported.

ajayvk commented on Migrating from Heroku to Magic Containers bunny.net/blog/migrating-... · Posted by u/pimterry

kylecordes · 7 days ago

We have an app on Heroku and obviously the writing is on the wall there. We looked around a bit and picked Digital Ocean as our next host:

* their app hosting product is similar to Heroku.

* very easy onboarding and controls for modest complexity apps. Unlike the extreme hoop-jumping required to do anything on one of the major cloud providers.

* everything looks reasonably up to date.

* it's an actual operating profitable company that's been around a while and probably will be for a long time... not a startup burning capital.

That said, this magic containers thing looks more analogous to Google Cloud Run, which I think is an absolutely fantastic offering. Unlike almost everything else out there, Cloud Run and presumably Magic Containers can do things like have a whole bunch of versions of your app up and running ready to come to life when a request arrives, but scaled to zero in the meantime. This category of hosting should be far more popular than it is, and it is wonderful to see another company offer it.

ajayvk · 7 days ago

Cloud Run makes lots of sense when running lots of small apps, apps scale to zero automatically.

I have been building https://github.com/openrundev/openrun which provides similar scale down to zero functionality, on a single machine with Docker or on top of Kubernetes.

ajayvk commented on State of Show HN: 2025 blog.sturdystatistics.com... · Posted by u/kianN

ajayvk · 25 days ago

Another recent article on this topic https://www.arthurcnops.blog/death-of-show-hn/

ajayvk commented on RIP Low-Code 2014-2025 zackliscio.com/posts/rip-... · Posted by u/zackliscio

goalieca · 2 months ago

Auth is a pretty classic case where it’s not hard to make your own account create/login form but it’s really hard to make a good one that does all the “right things”.

ajayvk · 2 months ago

Authentication and authorization are important requirements for internal tools. Low-code platforms support authn/authz for app access. Building internal tools with code is much easier now with GenAI, but ensuring proper RBAC access controls remains a challenge.

I have been building https://github.com/openrundev/openrun to try and solve internal tooling deployment challenges. OpenRun provides a declarative deployment platform which supports RBAC access controls and auditing. OpenRun integrates with OIDC and SAML, giving your code based apps authn/authz features like low-code platforms.

ajayvk commented on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025) · Posted by u/david927

ajayvk · 4 months ago

Building https://github.com/openrundev/openrun, a platform for declarative deployment of web apps.

OpenRun runs as a web server, which does GitOps driven app deployments. You can currently deploy apps on a standalone machine, on top of Docker/Podman. Working on adding support for deploying on top of Kubernetes. On Kubernetes, OpenRun will replace your build jobs (Jenkins/Actions etc), CD (ArgoCD etc) and IDP (Backstage etc). The same declarative config which works on a standalone machine will work on Kubernetes, with no YAML to maintain.

ajayvk commented on Replacing a $3000/mo Heroku bill with a $55/mo server disco.cloud/blog/how-idea... · Posted by u/jryio

odie5533 · 5 months ago

There's quite a few now. Coolify, Dokku, CapRover, Kamal.

ajayvk · 5 months ago

https://devpu.sh/ is another alternative, it has a nice UI built with Hypermedia (HTMX).

I am building https://github.com/openrundev/openrun/. Main difference is that OpenRun has a declarative interface, no need for manual CLI commands or UI operations to manage apps. Another difference is that OpenRun is implemented as a proxy, it does not depend on Traefik/Nginx etc. This allows OpenRun to implement features like scaling down to zero, RBAC access control for app access, audit logs etc.

Downside with OpenRun is that is does not plan to support deploying pre-packaged apps, no Docker compose support. Streamlit/Gradio/FastHTML/Shiny/NiceGUI apps for teams are the target use case. Coolify has the best support and catalog of pre-packaged apps.

ajayvk commented on Python as a Configuration Language Using Starlark openrun.dev/blog/starlark... · Posted by u/ajayvk

ajayvk · 5 months ago

This post looks at the experience with using Starlark as against YAML for deployment configuration.

Starlark can result in much more concise and flexible config. It does require extra work on the part of the developers who are writing the code (to read the config), but it can make things easier for end users writing the config.

ajayvk commented on Python as a Configuration Language Using Starlark openrun.dev/blog/starlark... · Posted by u/ajayvk

ajayvk · 5 months ago

There has been lots of discussions about the issues with YAML and other config languages. This post looks at the experience with using Starlark as the configuration language for infrastructure deployment using OpenRun.

Starlark can result in much more concise and flexible config for end-users. It does require extra work on the part of the developers who are writing the code which reads the Starlark based config.