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Comment by jkestner | Hacker News Reader

Tyler, you kick ass. From the way you build up to the numbers, you seem almost apologetic for your app's success. You don't have to apologize for making money on software, even if it is unfashionable.

I think you're able to charge $49 where an RSS reader can't because your audience is more professional. I'm one of thousands of other webmasters who have ...started GUI frontends for Apache, so I know what this is worth. Now, you going to add support for Nginx? :)

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Nginx is high on mine and my users' wish lists. I'm still trying to figure out if it's even possible to integrate with VirtualHostX (which is Apache focused) given the UI differences Nginx support would dictate or if it would be best to break Nginx support out into a new, standalone product. Some users might see a separate product as a money-grab, but I'm really at a loss as to how I'd combine Apache + Nginx support into a single product.

Some users might see a separate product as a money-grab

Some users don't think software developers should charge money. They make up an extremely small percentage of gross revenue and, accordingly, people whose opinions you should give the time of day to.

Definitely should be a separate product, with perhaps 10-20% off a bundle of the two. This also helps price discriminate your audience. People who actually need to monitor both probably work for big messy companies that can afford $90.

Maybe split it up into packages? You have a set of core features but can buy support for more advanced features for either Nginx/Apache or both. That would be my first hunch however I think it goes against what you've been doing with your app (pricing especially) though.

considering you'd be targetting two different webservers, i don't think so. you'd also be expanding the potential userbase. Besides, I haven't heard of anyone who uses both nginx & apache.

eh?

Then make me a first, i reverse proxy from Apache to NGINX, having NGINX as a caching layer for static assets etc..

That's not too uncommon imho...

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