Free options to release a utility?

[MadAd]

Ive written a small utility and want to host it and im a bit out of touch with what the latest preferred (and least hassle to use) free offerings are.

I dont expect much bandwidth, the app is less than 1 megabyte and apart from an initial boost I doubt the downloads would be more than 10 in a good month, also webspace to put 1-2 pages, some images of it, a few links nothing fancy, no sql, just ftp in.

Ofc I have searched but it seems to be a can of worms, the more visible in google have mixed reviews, 000webhost seems to offer the earth but its got a bad reputation, among other things pulling low traffic sites and yeah i might not have anyone come for a month, and some months I might get 5, so that kinda puts me off thinking it might just disappear and I have to move domain, id rather get it right first time and not mess with moving hosts if possible.

Also the free domain names thing seem to be a nightmare now, several blocks seem to be banned from search engines or frowned upon for bad behaviour, I just want to release my little free app on a page and dont need those kind of problems, I suppose im gonna have to fork out for a paid domain to avoid all that? Ultimately I could just buy webspace too but Im receiving zero revenue from the project so im trying to keep the costs minimal.

I would welcome suggestions from others that have done the same and have the same kind of traffic, thanks a lot.

 

[MrChad]

Open or closed source?

 

[cdr]

If you release it as open source - and there's no reason not to - you can host on GitHub. Google Code and SourceForge are still kicking around, but they're both still as clunky as ever. Just use GitHub for open source. Having open source projects - especially on github - looks great on a resume too.

Heroku, Google Apps, and a lot of other cloud services have a free tier that low bandwidth sites will easily fit in. The Cloudflare CDN has a free tier too, to further decrease bandwidth usage. A good option for hosting something simple that's not open source.

I'm not sure why you think you need a domain name, but if you really think you do just pony up the few bucks a year for a good registrar like NameCheap.

 

[kuntul]

I recommend sourceforge...^^

 

[cdr]

I recommend sourceforge...^^

SourceForge is stuck in 1998. It's hideous and clunky. There's not a single upside to it that I know of.

 

[MrChad]

SourceForge is stuck in 1998. It's hideous and clunky. There's not a single upside to it that I know of.

Microsoft's CodePlex is an option as well, although it's geared more towards open source Windows applications.

 

[cdr]

Like I said, github is the place to be.

 

[Ancalagon44]

What is this utility? Just curious.

 

[Ken g6]

If it's closed-source, there's also Google Sites, where you can put up a few web pages and a few small attachments, like the 1MB attachment you mentioned.

 

[MadAd]

Thanks for the replies guys, good point its free to use but not open source, its just a small statistics viewer ive written to improve my code skills

I wasnt even going to release it but people in my community ask me for it so ive tidied it up and now its close im look for somewhere to leave it if someone wants it in say, a years time or something, as well as somewhere maybe to put other little things I write over time.

 

[Nothinman]

Thanks for the replies guys, good point its free to use but not open source, its just a small statistics viewer ive written to improve my code skills

I wasnt even going to release it but people in my community ask me for it so ive tidied it up and now its close im look for somewhere to leave it if someone wants it in say, a years time or something, as well as somewhere maybe to put other little things I write over time.

That sounds like a good candidate for open source. If you're not using it any longer and don't care about keeping it's code secret, why not release the source so that others can keep using and updating it? I know I'm biased, but you should look at it from the opposite perspective; e.g. what reasons do you have for keeping the code secret?

 

[dwell]

I don't see why not to open source it. Unless it's a commercial product or you're doing something patentable or completely innovative there's no downside. I open source every little thing I write. Better someone gets some use out of it or learns from it than it dying on the vine in my src folder.