Show HN: WebCrate – an open-source social bookmarking tool | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: WebCrate – an open-source social bookmarking tool

webcrate.app

110 pointsbetahuhn70 comments

Hey fellow internet users! I always got frustrated with existing bookmarking tools as they were either too clunky to use or had way too many features I didn't need. Until I decided to just build my own!

WebCrate allows you to organize links, articles and more from around the web into collections called crates. You can share the crates with anyone and since each user gets their own instance of WebCrate in their own 'personal cloud' thanks to Deta Space, you can subscribe to other users crates and view their links right from your dashboard.

Deta Space made it really easy for me as dev to build something like WebCrate quickly and it's also awesome for users. The app keeps running even if I disappear and hosting, auth etc. is all handled for me.

For the nerds, I built WebCrate with Nuxt and ExpressJS and it uses Deta included NoSQL database.

You can learn more about WebCrate at http://webcrate.app or install it directly on Deta Space (https://deta.space/discovery/webcrate)! Let me know what you think (WebCrate is OSS, so you can also contribute) and I hope you find it useful!

First, it's not self-hosted if it's not running on my computer (or eventually my private cloud).

Second it seems like it doesn't snapshot the web pages? That's the killer feature that made me use Zotero, though it's big, ugly and clunky. I was tired of getting broken links or free articles that later required payment to be read again. I was quite happy with Instapaper, but annoyed by the not "self-hosted" part.

SingleFile [1] has some basic options allowing you to archive pages you add in your bookmarks.

[1] https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile

Good job :)

Check out ArchiveBox. Not as much of a bookmark manager but great for archiving pages.

I've been burned at least 3-4x now by bookmark sites shutting down, I just stick with Buku now: https://github.com/jarun/buku

Local, text/cli based, sqlite.

Agreed. I use buku and bukuserver because I can view bookmarks on my terminal/cli in addition to the browser page.

Bookmark management is in a bad state of affairs. If I'm on my phone or misc. browser, I use Pocket. I then use 'puku' to sync my Pocket urls into buku (with tags).

I use bukubrow for Firefox as an extension.

I wish there was a better way, but for now it works.

If anyone can write an iPhone/Android app, I'd be open to collaborate on project that could optimize bookmark management.

A great product would be: browser independent extensions, cli tool, db backend, os independent, self-hosted (with option for cloud) and no requirement for a web interface.

Just my .02 cents.

@cyberge99 check out BrainTool[1]. Its a Chromium extension that allows you to capture bookmarks and notes into a hierarchical topic tree thats stored in an org-mode syntax plain text file editable w emacs or any org editor (incl Orgzly on Android). It's not browser dependent for capture and navigation (not sure how it could be) but otherwise checks your boxes.

[1] https://braintool.org/2021/08/25/Managing-your-Browser-with-...

I use Pinboard for a cloud-based solution to bookmarking, and I export my Pinboard bookmark collection to an on-premises local PC location every 4 months or so, in-case Pinboard's servers are somehow destroyed (which is unlikely, but still possible).

All my browser bookmarks accumulate to staggering volumes after each year, and then I simply prune the cruft, or low-quality bookmarks and curate a list of all the best ones, all using Firefox's bookmark library, which is an underestimated tool and enormously useful for organizing bookmarks.

I typically use Firefox's bookmarks export feature that generates a HTML file that I can then browse at my leisure at any time and create a sort of 'master list' of bookmarks that I can then backup in Pinboard, or other cloud services to refer back to at any time.

> Deta Space made it really easy for me as dev to build something like WebCrate quickly and it's also awesome for users. The app keeps running even if I disappear and hosting, auth etc. is all handled for me

Ah yeah, love the concept, I had similar goals in mind when making Cardi (although I wasn't aware of many options at the time for putting data in control of the user -- I ended up just having people log in with AWS access keys and it stores data in DynamoDB, which is weird but has actually been working pretty well so far).

https://github.com/pickledish/cardi

Deta seems really interesting, looking forward to seeing where it goes from here! Would love more/better options in this space.

Yeah it's an awesome concept!

Cardi looks great too! Might be worth to see if you can port it to Space, would make it easier for non-tech people to use it!

The word 'self-hosted' is like 'open source' in that it leads to tons of distracting objections when people disagree about what it ought to mean.

Since that's been happening a lot in this thread, the easiest thing is to take the term out of the title, and thus (hopefully) the issue off the table. Let's stick to discussing the project now!

Thanks, didn't expect so much backlash about the term!

That's because self-hosted implies choice of where it's run; you don't offer that.

Please don't start again :)

Webcrate is a great name, however the "crate" term strongly implies archival in this context to me. So as a user, I would actually assume that it takes an archive/snapshot of every website that I bookmark. The website doesn't seem to indicate it can do this?

For me, "crate" is now associated with anything rust (and I'm neither a rust person or a programmer) - if I see crate in relation to tech, "it has something to do with rust."

Interesting, I'll forever associate crates with vinyl records and DJing.. and I am a programmer, and not a DJ..

I guess context matters! ;-)

Funny how it means completely different things to different people. As a 18 year old I would never think of vinyl records when hearing "crates" :D

I'm with you! It's possible that at one time I thought as you (also being a music fan), but in the past 5 (?) years you can't trip but to find someone talking about rust in the tech spaces. Not only context, but era (point in time?) as well.

lol, this wouldn't be an HN thread without people bikeshedding over an app's name, would it?

The programmer's curse - naming things.

"There are 2 hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-1 errors."

Nope, not at this time. You can only store the URL itself in a "crate".

Glad you like the name though!

Is there any supported way to run it on a private server?

Not out of the box no. You could fork and modify it, but that would take a lot of work.

Can't recommend Deta Space enough though, it is kind of like self-hosting it without managing an actual server!

See, I wouldn’t call it self-hosted if you can’t actually… self-host it. Someone else’s server isn’t mine.

come on, let's be a bit more inclusive about the term "self-hosting".

For instance, I run a few apps in Linode. I manage the virtual servers, and consider myself to be a self-hoster of these webapps (Nextcloud, Drupal, PixelFed, et cetera)

These aren't necessarily my servers but at some level, they are.

If you can install it on any recent Linux machine it is self-hostable. If you can't it is not.

The difference is you know what you set up, and could move it to another server if needed.

This detaspace thing is like saying that Amazon S3 is self hosted because you can upload your own files to it.

I would say your setup appears drastically more yours than Deta, however, which appears to only host apps on their own infrastructure. The software you're using is installed where you chose to put it, and can be installed in your home if you choose.

It does depend a bit on what you count as a “server”. I’d definitely count virtual servers where you control the software stack entirely (well, apart from ring −1), provided there’s nothing special about the hardware.

I totally get your point! Instead of self-hosting, you could call it a personal cloud.

My personal cloud is the rack sitting next to me, not someone elses box that other people are also hosted on.

You are not really helping yourself if you desperately attempt changing established words in a way that it would fit your business. You just alienate people and give yourself a bad reputation people will remember you by.

Nothing personal, but we're getting entirely too fast and loose with definitions here.

Calling this "self-hosted" is flat out false. Cut it out.

Is there a pricing plan for it? I can't seem to find one, and I prefer knowing what am I signing up for upfront.

Space (and WebCrate) are currently free!

Even if they charge something for it in the future, the version of WebCrate you install today will always be free.

On Deta Space updates are also opt-in, you choose when and if you want to update WebCrate.

How is the service currently being funded?

WebCrate is free since I as a dev don't run any servers and the data/compute lives with the users. I don't have any operational costs essentially.

Deta Space is just getting started -- their plan is to offer payments and take a percentage for paid apps.

Thanks!

It's not at all like self hosting it, sounds like it's just running on some servers located somewhere, and is completely unknown to the user.

I'm also surprised it's that difficult to convert to self hosting, it makes me think that detaspace has a very convoluted system for running things.

WebCrate uses services provided by Deta (like Deta Base for the database, Deta Auth for authentication) internally and thus can't be made available to run on any server without a rewrite of the backend.

Those services made it possible for me to build WebCrate in a short time and took a lot of work off my shoulders.

I know not directly related to WebCrate, but it looks like the signup for DetaSpace is broken, so I am unable to try WebCrate.

When I try to sign up for DetaSpace, I get the following message:

> Exceeded daily email limit for the operation or the account. If a higher limit is required, please configure your user pool to use your own Amazon SES configuration for sending email.

Yeah sorry about that! I contacted the Space team and they are working on fixing it!

You should be signed up, but the confirmation emails are not going out. Maybe try again in a few hours!

Deta Space appears to be very lacking in the product details department. I see a comment saying you can't self-host it, so it has to be on Deta's cloud, or can you even bring your own cloud provider?

Is there any technical/security guarantee's to Deta's privacy claims? For one, a casual reading of their privacy page suggests they integrate a half dozen analytics (aka monitoring) tools including Google Analytics.

Hi, CEO of Deta here. On Deta Space, self-hosting means that once the app is installed in your own personal cloud, you have full ownership of the instance and it's data. Not the developer.

We use GA in our dashboard but the apps themselves do not contain tracking. We aim to remove all tracking in the future. GA only collects web pages visits (anonymously).

I would suggest you avoid redefining what self-hosting means. ;)

Are there any technical limitations to prevent Deta (or someone who compromises Deta) from accessing a user's data?

With regards to different apps installed within a user's personal cloud, is there any isolation that ensures a compromise with one app can't compromise data in other apps the user installs?

What is a "personal cloud" in this context?

I can't see how I could have full ownership of it since I didn't set it up and have no idea how it works. It comes across as very 'black box' and hidden behind the scenes.

Either way it's not self-hosted unless I'm the one doing the full setup from the start.

What is the business relationship between you and the OP?

You're both trying to redefine what everyone understands as self-hosting, in some seemingly direct ways.

from the looks of it, I assume Deta is some sort of PaaS, and aims to be a hybrid between Heroku and Glitch. It's an interesting space to be in, but the product's maturity leaves a lot to be desired.

If you have concerns you should probably just be using Heroku or your own homegrown solution in IaaS/Bare Metal.

Well, the interesting thing is the developer experience seems to be very much like Sandstorm.io: "Publishing on Space allowed me to act like I was building this app for one person; I didn't have to worry about authentication"

But it doesn't seem to provide any real description of technical justifications to claim Deta provides "privacy".

We give every app instance it's own server (VM) and database. It is completely isolated from all other instances of the same app. The developer has no access to your app instances or their data. Take a look at our sister product for the technical details "Deta Cloud" (deta.sh)

We don't have much information on Space as we're still in the alpha stage.

Deta Space is still in developer alpha. We have a long way to go!

Deta Cloud (deta.sh) is a PaaS like Heroku. Deta Space (deta.space) on the other hand is something new we call the "personal cloud". We will announce more soon.

As someone with over 2000+ bookmarks organized under 30+ folders on Google bookmarks, I've been looking for a self-hosted bookmarking tool with a nice UI that can run on my home server and is easily available across all platforms and devices for a while.

This looks like a great start but I wouldn't call it self-hosted though, I'm more than happy to pay a nominal one time fee for a docker deployable image version of this.

Thanks for the feedback! I can now see why not everyone has the same understanding of "self-hosted", which is totally okay!

I am not planning on providing a version of WebCrate which can be run on any server any time soon. WebCrate uses services provided by Deta (like Deta Base for the database) internally and thus can't be moved to a docker image without a rewrite of the backend.

I hope you understand and may consider giving Deta Space/WebCrate a try in the future!

This is the second project I see here on Deta Space but I dont exactly follow what Deta Space is... is it a cloud service that hosts the app for you, under your account? I did not sign-up because I didn't see any pricing page. Then there's Deta Cloud, which has pricing, but it's all so unclear as to what I am signing up for.

Neat product! I wanted to point out a couple of typos on the landing page:

“Subscribe directly to another users WebCrate instace“

“Stays running even if the we disappear.”

You might want to use a tool like Grammarly to help tighten up the marketing copy (or just pay a copywriter - you can probably even find someone at your university to do it for cheap). Not a criticism, just a suggestion.

I would strongly discourage use of Grammarly: It's essentially a keylogger which uploads everything you type to their cloud service, and there is really no guarantee of privacy or ability to delete that data.

I have the same concerns (and don’t use it for private writing) but I figured for public web copy it’s not a huge deal. Also, you can (or at least could) install their desktop app which would require you to do writing in it or copy/paste it in to get their suggestions. That way only the content you want to send to them goes, rather than everything.

You are right, for text that will be public it isn't too bad.

Good tip with the Desktop app, but that doesn't seem like an ideal solution either.

Keeping my fingers away from Grammerly all together sounds like the best option IMO!

Good to know, thanks! I'm currently using Microsoft's Editor extension.

Do you have any good alternatives?

Whoops! Thanks so much for pointing them out!

Thought I fixed all the typos, but some always get through! Grammarly might be a good solution, thanks :D

There's also a couple typos here:

> Descentralized

> Subscribe directly to another users WebCrate instace

btw, how have you implemented interoperability?

Thanks, fixed!

Between WebCrate instances? Thanks to Deta Space each instance has its own domain so it is reachable directly without a gateway or central server. The instance then exposes a public API which another instance and the client can access to get the required data.

Can this import .webloc and .url files? If there's something I want to keep, I will normally just drag the url over to my desktop when then saves it as one of those files. I don't have a toolbar showing in my browser and trying to hunt for the link or button to save it is more work than just dragging the url to the desktop.

Not at moment no. You can only add links via the browser extensions and the dashboard.

The extension supports an omnibox though so you can just type "wc" in your address bar, press tab and everything after that will be added as a URL to your WebCrate instance.

This looks great, but there's no chance I'm going to use it on this detaspace service, since their website doesn't even explain what it does.

Can someone recommend a truly self hosted solution? I too use pinboard but I would like to host on my raspi or something

I'm the author of linkding (1), an open-source, self-hosted bookmark manager that is similar to Pinboard, minus the social features. It uses Docker for deployments, SQLite as database and runs on Raspberry Pis.

There are many other solutions in the self-hosted space, such as Shiori or LinkAce.

1: https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding

Give me Docker or give me death.

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