A project called Launcher.io aims to make it painless for web users and developers alike to deploy and launch web applications. Launcher.io is a Mozilla WebFWD project.
In case you are not familiar with WebFWD, it is an initiative by Mozilla to extend their resources and expertise in support of open source projects that “extend the web”. WebFWD has an impressive portfolio of projects they have launched and supported.
Launcher.io is one of these projects, and was originally called OpenJumpstarts and was more targeted towards developers. Now as Launcher.io the service has the goal of letting you deploy complex web applications and frameworks to a hosting provider in just a few simple steps.
The service supports a number of web applications and frameworks. Currently the sported web applications and frameworks are:
- Concrete5 — CMS
- ThinkUp — Social Media aggregator
- MediaWiki — Wiki
- WordPress — CMS
- Ushahidi — Information croudsourcing platform
- CASH Music — Platform for musicians
- Node express — JavaScript based web development platform
- ActionHero — node.js based API framework
- Ruby on Rails — Ruby-based web framework
- Django — Python based web framework
- Flask — Python based web framework
- phpMyAdmin — MySQL admin panel
- Drupal — CMS
- PressFlow — Drupal Distribution
As is evident from the above examples, Launcher.io can handle applications in different languages, PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript etc. SugarCRM, OpenPhoto and Redmine are also in the process of being added to the service.
For deploying, the service currently supports AppFog and Cloud Foundry, but is built such that it can support any Cloud Foundry-compatible API for deployment. You can add the provider of your choice as long as it fulfils that criteria.
Deployment itself is simple, and takes just a few clicks and is automatic once you provide the login details for your cloud hosting provider.
If you want to try it out, the service itself is free, and can be accessed at launcher.io .It will automatically create a free account at AppFog for you if you don’t have one. AppFog itself provides a free plan for hosting apps as long as they take no more than 2GB of memory, and run no more than 8 total services.
