Self-hosting without sysadmin expertise!
Control your web presence away from platform lock-in!
Publish your website to any Linux box from any VPS provider!
Sprouts/Gardener is a GUI application that runs on your computer!
No command line! No config files! No CI pipeline!
Available for macOS and Windows!
Alpha release binaries are not signed;You'll need to circumvent the quarantine system on macOS.
↓ ↓ Watch a 10 minute introduction and demo ↓ ↓
How it works
Sprouts is the application server, and Gardener is the GUI program you use to install Sprouts on a Linux server and publish websites on it.
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Download the Gardener desktop application and run it
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Click "Add Server" to connect Gardener to a Linux server you control
- You can rent a Linux server from a VPS provider such as Vultr, Hetzner, among many others!
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Gardener will install the necessary software on the server in a matter of seconds
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Click "Add Site" to host a website on the server
- Simply, specify the domain name you want and Gardener will do the rest
- Make sure you own the domain name, and that the DNS A record points to the server's IP
- You may need to allow some time to pass for the DNS settings to propagate across the internet
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Your website is now live on the internet, powered by Sprouts
This very website you are currently reading is being served by a Sprouts instance!
Zero-Config localhost preview
Gardener runs a Sprouts instance locally for each website you create, so you can preview your site on localhost!
Templated static content
You can use Django/Jinja-like templates to define common structures and reusable snippets!
Builtin markdown filter allows you to write content in markdown, without a build step!
Motivation
Your website is your web presence; you should be in control of it!
Before Sprouts, there was no simple computer program that made it simple and easy to self-host your own website.
You either have:
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Cloud providers that take away all the technical jargon but lock you in to their platform and infrastructure.
It's convenient, but they can kick you off, go out of business, continually increase their prices; all without recourse!
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Jargon filled, so called "self hosting" tools, that just help you create a confusing "cloud environment" on your own servers. Usually aimed at a certain class of tech enthusiasts who enjoy wrangling with this kind of complexity!
Theoretically it gives you control, but the high technical barrier and the required time investment makes them a non-starter for many people!
Sprouts/Gardener lowers the technical barrier by collapsing the complexity of the underlying infrastructure so that it can provide an easy to use interface.
Unlike other tools, we do not assume any kind of sysadmin related experience. You never need to touch the command line, let alone edit config files!
Further more, it's just a regular computer program, not a platform: you pay for it ONCE, and can use it forever!
If your VPS provider starts causing you trouble, you can easily move your site somewhere else! You are not locked to your current provider!
Larger Vision
Although the initial release of Sprouts focuses on templated static content, the vision is to enable people to operate a website where they can interact with visitors and foster a community.
The internet, at its core, is a two-way communication medium. At minimum, we need to have:
- Comments on published content
- Engaging discussion forums
- Chat rooms with browsable archive
In addition, we want to enable individual creators to run their online business more or less just on Sprouts.
For this to work, we need the following:
- Analytics
- Email Subscriptions
- Calendar Bookings
- Paywalled Content
- Members Only Area
The idea is to have all of this on your own website, not as a bunch of different integrations with external services.
You should be able to sell online courses, downloadable artifacts, podcast episodes, etc etc, all with no additional recurring costs beyond that of the storage and bandwidth costs from your VPS provider.
Pricing
The alpha version is free for testing. We don't recommend using it for production yet!
When a proper version is released, the pricing structure is going to be like this:
Indie
Free
- For own use
- $100k annual revenue limit
Business
$200 (one time payment)
- For own use
- Perpetual license
- One year of free updates
Agency
$200/mo (recurring)
- For agency use
- Free updates
Q & A
What does "own use" mean?
We distinguish between "own use" and "agency use".
Agency use means you are using the system to build and manage websites
for clients.
Own use means you are using the system to build websites for yourself or
your business.
What is meant by an annual revenue limit?
We want to make Sprouts/Gardener free for personal and small business
use.
We use the annual revenue to distinguish between individuals who are
just starting out and established businesses.
If you run an online business that generates revenue over the mentioned
limit, then you need to use the business license.
Is this open source?
Sprouts/Gardener is not open source! It's a commercial product.
We have plans to make it source-available, meaning you can read the
source and make changes to it for your own use.
We also release some components as open source, such as the reverse
proxy HoTCo:RE, and the cross-platform GUI
framework SLAY.
How do you setup the server? What do you install? Docker? Apache? MySQL?
We do not install any such tools. The server setup consists of
installing two programs:
(1) HoTCo:RE - Our programmable reverse proxy
(2) Sprouts - Our server side program
Both are compressed into a single file weighing around ~10MB, uploaded
to a temp directory, and installed to /opt/hotcore/ and
/opt/sprouts respectively.
Each tool creates its own user that it runs under. Two users are
created: hotcore and sprouts.
No other tools or packages are installed on the server.
Do I need to prepare the server in some way?
No! In fact, Sprouts/Gardener works best with a bare linux
installation and no additional packages.
If you have another http server installed and using ports 80 and
443, we will not be able to install HoTCo:RE, and as a result, we
will not be able to setup domain name routing.
Why do I need to enter the root user & password?
Gardener does not store the root password!
We need root permissions to install both programs (hotcore & sprouts) to /opt/.. and to create their respective users.
We also copy a public key to the authorized keys file for each user: root, hotcore, and sprouts.
Gardener generates a private/public key pair on first launch, specific to your machine.
If you need the public key, you can find from the "Info" view (click the button on the topbar).
Feedback
If you are running an online business, and you care about owning your web presence enough to be willing to pay for a product that helps you achieve that, I want to talk to you and listen to your needs.
Casually shoot an email to contact@judi.systems.