🚨🚨🚨 api.applause-button.com - not resolving 🚨🚨🚨

[vsurresh]

Apologies, not related to the code but the clap count has stopped working for the past few days. I've set it up using the official website and it looks like the URL is no longer resolving 'api.applause-button.com'. Is this being discontinued?

https://applause-button.com/

[TibowWebdesign]

Same problem here.
The URL https://api.applause-button.com can't be found anymore.
So the script doesn't work anymore. Sad!

I had to remove this cool feature from my personnal website :(

[vsurresh]

I've managed to deploy the backend in AWS but lost all the clap counts and had to restart.

[mu88]

Is there any news about this @ColinEberhardt ?

[ColinEberhardt]

Apologies all, I've had to retire the hosted service. For the first ~4 years the donations I was receiving from OpenCollective were just about covering the running costs. However, in the past 6 months usage increased significantly, with millions of requests each day, and the costs simply went out of control. If you want to keep using applause button I'm afraid you're going to have to host it yourself:

https://github.com/ColinEberhardt/applause-button-server

I have exported the database with the clap counts, which you can access here:

https://github.com/ColinEberhardt/applause-button/blob/gh-pages/fmxluf7buy4dpjrfj27t3kkfei.json

[mu88]

Oh, that's sad news, but absolutely understandable. Just out of curiosity, about which amount of money are we talking?

Anyhow, thank you very much for this beloved product!

[vsurresh]

Totally understandable. I managed to host the backend in AWS using your repo. Thank you for all the hard work.

[mu88]

@vsurresh: I'm considering this, too. Could you maybe explain a little about which AWS components you used so that I can benefit from your learnings about hosting the backend on AWS, too? 🙂

[vsurresh]

@mu88 I've used this repo to create the resources, one of my friends helped me with updating some of the old dependencies but we managed to get it to work. You need to install serverless and run a single command to deploy everything. (I think serverless deploy)

It deploys S3, Lambda, DynamoDB and an API gateway.

[fchabouis]

I would be interested to know the server costs you had when you decided to switch the server down and the number of requests you got. I am an Elixir fan boy and I'm wondering if it would be possible to keep the costs low with a different technology. Do you have the information available? Thanks!

[webguyio]

@ColinEberhardt That's a bummer, but I also completely understand. Running several FOSS projects myself, I understand it's super difficult to get them to a sustainable place.

This does significantly cripple the project in terms of "A universal, centrally-stored like count, that's persistent across the web and doesn't track you." — Which was the important, unique bit, that replaced things like the Facebook Like button.

You may be reluctant to share hosting costs because I think it's the cost of your time too that matters, which shouldn't be taken for granted. If you're comfortable sharing details about what it would take to get the project fully live again, you have my email.

[fchabouis]

For information, I have set up an alternative server (written in Elixir) to display and increment claps. The addresss is applause.chabouis.fr and the repo is here.

So if you want to fix the clap issue on your website, you can modify the api property like this:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/applause-button/dist/applause-button.css" />
<script src="https://unpkg.com/applause-button/dist/applause-button.js"></script>
<div style="display: flex; justify-content: center; padding-bottom: 24px;">
  <applause-button style="width: 58px; height: 58px;" url={{ .Permalink }} multiclap="true"
    api="https://applause.chabouis.fr" />
</div>

I have loaded the existing clap count kindly given by @ColinEberhardt so you should get your existing claps back :)

I tried on my personnal website and things seem to work properly, if you want to give it a try.

why did I do that?

I wanted to fix the claps on my website.

why a rewrite?

The server functionnality is really minimalistic so it was easy to do it. I also have the intuition that running the server with Elixir could lead to a significant cost reduction. I understand that the previous server was costing approximately 50$ per month for 100 000 calls (according to the website) a day and I am curious to see how much it will cost using Elixir. If you have more information about the costs and the number of daily calls @ColinEberhardt I am very interested.

is the server going to be shut down?

Not anytime soon, if people start using it. If some day I decide to shut it down for some reason, I will publish an updated database clap count like @ColinEberhardt did, so anybody can run a universal server again without loosing data.

what about the server - frontend code compatibility?

If the API expectation changes on the frontend side of the project, that will be a problem. But I don't see any reason for such a change, so I took the risk.

Let's hit the server and find out how much request I can handle with the Fly.io free tier!

[ColinEberhardt]

Fantastic, thanks @fchabouis - I'll update the website to point people towards this endpoint