HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

raphael-gold

76 karma · joined June 25, 2018

co-founder & CEO of weweb.io, a no-code front-end builder. YC Badge: 0xc7d56dfeb1b07ba2f86ba0ea7d5aa6ae097b5d58
submissionscomments
raphael-gold··on (Re)launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – visually build the front-end of your web-apps
Thanks! Looking forward to get your feedback :)
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
thanks! Just corrected :D
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Thanks, any feedback on the tool would be highly appreciated!
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
That's a really good point. Agreed that we should perfect one solution before extending to other ones. We might start with Nuxt as weweb mainly works with vue.js at the moment. We'll let the community know on our public roadmap: https://weweb.canny.io/
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
appreciate, thanks and please share your feedback with us if you give the tool a try - that's the most valuable thing we can get from you folks!
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
cool! There is also https://blocks-ui.com/
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
yes, actually a good portion of the users using Airtable asked for it, but it means that we might develop a back-end dedicated to this. We are exploring it at the moment. I sent a message to Colin to discuss the Clerk integration ;)
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
looks like it could be possible :) I just sent you a message so we can discuss it further!
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Well the good news is that we already have the Strapi integration! You can try it right away if you'd like :) As for the hosting, right now people ask us directly and we send them their static files, later people will just have to click a button and configure the deployment microservice to deploy the files wherever they want. We didn't plan to enable using weweb on-premise.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Agreed, they are building a really great product.

We are (at this stage) still very different though: with weweb, you can build full layouts with various elements and manage the CSS of every single element directly from a GUI in a no-code editor, just like in a Webflow.

In Stackbit's no-code editor, you can change the position of ready-made sections and change some of the props of these sections (text, links, etc.). You cannot however build a section from scratch 100% in no-code like you would do in a Webflow (or weweb) using grids/flexboxes, drag & dropping elements into these containers, updating all the CSS parameters visually, etc. You'd have to do it in the code in Stackbit today.

Same goes with Tina CMS. They do not offer a comprehensive no-code editor like weweb or Webflow and we are very different for that reason.

The cool thing that Tina and Stackbit manage very well (and that we don't), is the ability to add a in-line visual editor in an existing react project to change the content and some of the properties visually, but it is limited to these properties.

What we do on the contrary is offering a comprehensive no-code site builder where marketers would build 90% of a custom website and developers would add custom coded vue components in the drag & drop editor for the extra 10% that cannot be built in no-code (+ make some of the properties of these components editable from the GUI).

Hope this makes sense?

raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Good question. Wordpress is number 1. It is the biggest site builder that has a GUI for marketers and that's open to developers. Only, it is in PHP, so we don't directly compete with them. Webflow, Squarespace and the likes are not direct competitors, but they are site builders that we sometimes compete with for some users. Does that make sense?
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Currently it is not available but that's the next feature on the list! We are thinking about integrating Firebase and https://supabase.io/ to start with. We are also taking a look at the possibility to manage all the users & authentication from Airtable. What would you prefer to use as an authentication service?
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
To start with Stackbit I believe you need to start with one of their themes and stackbit would be added on top of it. While you can start from a blank page in our tool. In their editor, the customization possibilities are limited in no-code compared to a comprehensive no-code website builder.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
I understand. When you say self-hosted you are talking about the websites generated or the full app?
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
On the previous version of our website we actually dedicated the home page to marketers and had a link in the nav called "For Developers". The for developers page started to rank on google on some requests like "visual builder for react". We are revamping this page now and we'll add it again on the site.

Thanks for the feedback on the video, it's really useful. Makes me think that on the developer video we should probably start from a blank site and add a custom component in the editor right away.

raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
no unfortunately the editor supports only Chromium based browsers but we are planning to expand support to other browser engines as we grow :)
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
I discussed this with the guys at Vercel a few weeks ago, this is definitely something we'll look into when we improve our React support. We'll also enable a one click deployment to Vercel so you can do a Next SSR + deployment on Vercel in one click. This should be possible by the end of Q3 this year.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
oh wow, thank you. You are comparing us with giants and I feel we still have a lot of work to do on the editor to catch up with them. But we are working hard to ship improvements fast! Feedback are always welcomed, that's how we improve, so, much love for our early adopters <3
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
correct! It should be working now :)
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
yes they are exportable, but it is on a on-demand basis. Not so many users asked for it yet, so we didn't build this feature in self-service but it is in our backlog. We want to make sure anyone can deploy the static files on their own infrastructure, but we are just waiting for more demand to build it in self-service. You can actually go upvote for it on our public roadmap: https://weweb.canny.io/feature-requests
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
good luck to you too!
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
yay! good luck with webase, good vibes in the name too :D
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
cool that you felt there should be a solution to this problem too. Let us know what you think about the tool, I'd happily share point of views on how to solve this problem.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
cool, great feedback. We'll look into implementing bandwidth restriction instead of page view, I had the same conversation with an agency yesterday and they were leaning toward your point of view.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
oh yes, we will release a native integration soon, in the meantime here is how to add a google font in your site: https://www.loom.com/share/6d2156f99f024362a4286f648d255c7b
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
great question! From my perspective, stackbit is made for large corporates willing to add a no-code layer above an existing Jamstack site. This provides additional customization option to marketers compared to a headless CMS only.

Our approach is different because you would build your site from scratch using weweb, which gives you much more customization possibilities on the front-end than a stackbit, but it would not be possible to add weweb "on-top" of an existing react or vue website.

raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Yes! Following your comment I just created a new page for that (:D), you can sign up here: https://www.weweb.io/partner-program/
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Absolutely, the Jamstack ecosystem is just beginning.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Yes that makes sense. Though, it would be hard to apply edits limits because the number of edits can vary greatly, independently from the purchasing power of a customer (for example a startup would change it's home page every other day while a large corporate would barely touch it once a quarter). The bandwidth or page views limits seem to be raising the same issue and the logic for us is simply to avoid server costs that would be too high for a single site that would pay a basic monthly subscription.
raphael-gold··on Launch HN: Weweb.io (YC W21) – Create websites visually using JAMstack tools
Yes, back-end integrations seem to be one of the main reasons why users decide to adopt us. Being able to add their own components is also one of the big reasons. Also, being able to customize the front-end without limits also reassures developers who were mainly interested in using back-end integrations.

I really like your point of vue on the marketplace approach and tend to agree. Most users will want off the shelf elements that they can customize easily (especially marketers). We will start working on the marketplace this Spring.

As for react in vue, our problem really lies into the pre-rendering -> the main problem is that we have react in a vue.js environment which can create performance problems and conflicts between the two frameworks.

Page 1 of 2Next →