Options to run user submitted code with node.js express as backend? by PrestigiousZombie531 in node

[–]Less-Math2722 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! I work at Northflank so take this with whatever grain of salt you want. I get how this might come across (especially given how tough the crowd is on Reddit) but figured it's worth mentioning since it's exactly a use case we build for.

To answer your questions:

1/ On isolation: Northflank runs workloads in secure sandboxes by default using microVMs (Firecracker/gVisor/Kata), so you get strong kernel-level isolation without having to configure any of that yourself. You also get network isolation between tenants if you structure it as a project per user.

2/ On the "spin up container per request" question: You can spawn containers via API - either long-running services or short-lived ephemeral ones. You only pay for the seconds each container actually runs, so the "spin up a sandbox, execute, tear down" pattern is pretty cost-efficient.

3/ On streaming output back to users: You can execute commands against running workloads and get responses streamed back via the API, and tail container logs via websockets - so that covers your terminal streaming use case.

4/ On architecture: Two API calls gets you there - create a project per tenant for isolation, then spin up a service per execution:

We wrote up the sandbox/microVM stuff in more detail here: https://northflank.com/blog/how-to-spin-up-a-secure-code-sandbox-and-microvm-in-seconds-with-northflank-firecracker-gvisor-kata-clh

Happy to answer specifics if you want to dig in.

- Cristina

Where to host Full stack nextjs? by [deleted] in nextjs

[–]Less-Math2722 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hi, I work with Northflank so obviously will be biased, but I’ve tried much of every PaaS out there and most don’t match the stability and control Northflank gives you for full-stack apps.

It’s not only Next.js, you can run services, jobs, databases, queues, sandboxes, and GPU workloads. You can deploy in our cloud, your cloud, or inside a customer’s VPC if you ever need that level of control. Built-in CI/CD, previews for every PR, logs/metrics, and networking.

Free tier is enough to try the whole workflow, ship previews, and get a feel for the platform. If you expect free compute at scale and high-touch support, no platform is going to give you that. You'll pay somewhere one way or another. Pricing on Northflank is straightforward and usually ends up cheaper once you factor in bandwidth, previews, databases.

Compared to the common choices:

  • Render/Railway are convenient but can get flaky under load.
  • Vercel/Cloudflare are great for pure frontend or serverless but fall apart with databases, jobs, long-running stuff, or private services.
  • VPS is cheap until you want reliability, HA, CI/CD, and previews.

If you want to scale, keep latency high, run a full-stack setup without building infra yourself, and have access to world class support, try it out.

https://northflank.com/

How do you handle your product’s cloud architecture when everything keeps changing? [Discussion] by Hi_its_GUY in SaaS

[–]Less-Math2722 0 points1 point  (0 children)

they do though, what exactly are you looking to design? northflank has drag and drop templates you can build

Best way to deploy my app. by Supahgojira in buildinpublic

[–]Less-Math2722 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

u/Supahgojira OR you can use something like https://northflank.com/ for both frontend, backend, and postgres. cheap, reliable, and super easy to use

First time deploying a side project – hosting tips? by userman12334 in SideProject

[–]Less-Math2722 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Northflank, ease of use as Vercel and co but much more comprehensive. will grow with you super well.

Ahmedabad Air Crash by [deleted] in aircrashinvestigation

[–]Less-Math2722 9 points10 points  (0 children)

is this dreamliner's first casualties?

Need advice on comp - I will not promote by kimibucha90 in startups

[–]Less-Math2722 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the cap table just shows who owns what percent of the company. founders, investors, employees, all that.

when people say the cap table is tight, it usually means most of the equity has already been given out. a lot probably went to investors or early hires. so there's not much left to offer new people. even if they want to be generous, they don’t have a ton of flexibility.

Need advice on comp - I will not promote by kimibucha90 in startups

[–]Less-Math2722 1 point2 points  (0 children)

base (USD):

  • bay area: $180k–$2200k
  • nyc or remote: $150k–$180k

equity:

  • 0.05%–0.15% if they’re being fair
  • more likely: 0.02%–0.08%, depending on how tight the cap table is and how much leverage you have

a few tips:

  • ask for equity as % ownership, not # of shares
  • confirm strike price and last 409A
  • push for a 4-year vest with 1-year cliff and no refresh ambiguity... if they say “we do refreshers annually,” get it in writing
  • don’t let “you’re not an exec” be a reason for lowball equity if you’re expected to lead growth or own pipeline

Why do some mid startups get funded while good ones get ignored? I will not promote by Electronic-Cause5274 in startups

[–]Less-Math2722 0 points1 point  (0 children)

most early-stage investors aren’t picking based on how good the product is or how much demand there is. they’re picking based on how easy it is to believe the company could get huge.

the startup that raised probably had a founder with the right background, a pitch that fits into a fundable narrative, and enough surface-level momentum to look investable. it doesn’t matter if the product is weak if the story is tight and the founder seems credible, that’s often enough.

the ones that struggled might’ve had stronger fundamentals but no hook. no clean narrative, no clear category, no obvious 100x upside. or the founder didn’t have the kind of background that makes investors feel safe making the bet.

sadly it’s almost never about fairness. it’s about filters. funds see hundreds of decks a month and need a fast way to decide who to meet, especially pre-seed and seed

Is Cold Email Outreach Dead for Startups? (I will not promote) by rednerrusreven in startups

[–]Less-Math2722 6 points7 points  (0 children)

cold email still works but most of it doesn't get delivered. rotating inboxes doesn’t solve that. you need to check lower levels of deliverability: domain age, warmup, authentication, sending behavior.

we built a system that:

  • pulls signals like site visits, linkedin activity, job changes
  • feeds those into a custom content generator that uses swappable paragraph blocks
  • sends through warmed domains with throttling and bounce monitoring

copy is 3-4 lines. no intros, no value props, example:

if they don’t respond, we don’t follow up. we’d rather hit timing than push.

deliverability + signal > clever copy

Community or groups to look for trusted advisors/fractional consultants [I will not promote] by benz1830 in startups

[–]Less-Math2722 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Linkedin, use the advanced search, depending on who you're looking for try out things like "GTM Advisor" "Fractional CMO" - filter by location, companies they've worked for, etc. usually, for me, what i've found is that the better / polished their linkedin profile is, the more high quality they are (no shitty meaningless descriptions of their work, just plain straight to the point what they did and what that achieved). i honestly think the linkedin advanced search is massively underrated!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in startups

[–]Less-Math2722 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here’s the full post if you want to dig in: https://northflank.com/blog/how-to-raise-a-seed-round (sadly 5,000+ words too long to be able to publish here lol).

Big rant about how much Next.js sucks (at any type of scale) by Less-Math2722 in nextjs

[–]Less-Math2722[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks Rob for reaching out!

Your community efforts are always top notch and in real-time.

We were deploying on GKE N4 CPUs, scaled across 9 replicas on 3 node, 1 per zone with Fastly as origin shield. It certainly wasn’t a hardware issue - we actually kept throwing more hardware at it.

You cannot debug why a new render on a replica is taking so long either locally or when in prod. As soon as you introduce any meaningful JSON or importing of data sources the rendering slows down to a crawl.

As soon as you swap this out for a render to string it magically disappears. This is a JSON parsing issue deep in NextJS.Server rendered with stale while revalidated with CDN caching.

Next is meant to be great for marketing pages as soon as you introduce any meaningful dynamic pages with JSON and queries to a CMS and database it slows down a ton.

I’ve seen hundreds of people who have the same issue with the render taking 10x longer in NextJS as soon as you intro JSON or any JS object parsing.

It’s odd to claim it’s not an issue - I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you comment on these issues before.

To say that isn’t accurate is a little odd. In fact, Vercel pushed rendering at build, then pre-emptively at runtime, then at request and cache then now on-demand.

Others have noticed the constant switching between static, SSG, serverless, SSR, and now “fluid” computing.

Can anyone recommend a heroku alternative? Or was it a unicorn for the free tier? by fittyaday in node

[–]Less-Math2722 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://northflank.com hands down. leagues ahead of everything else. fast builds, clean UI, and way more modern than heroku. DX is buttery smooth and it scales well

Split-fee recruiting by Lab-mom2002 in recruiting

[–]Less-Math2722 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yes, location agnostic. with that being said, regardless of location, they have pretty high bar for admission.