Show HN: I built a self-hosted error tracker in Rails
11 comments
·October 31, 2025bberenberg
I think this is a great idea with the wrong pricing model. Look at all the one off payment products that involve code, they're all dead. Just charge a lower but recurring price so I can be sure that you make enough money that you keep working on it. $20/month flat price to keep the license working and source available if you shut down. If people like it and want the barebones Sentry then charge them $40 a month to provide code and host it. Wishing you the best of luck.
kyrylo
> Look at all the one off payment products that involve code, they're all dead.
Could you share some examples? I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
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I really went all-in with the ONCE philosophy because it resonated with me deeply. It felt more like a passion project than cold business strategy.
bberenberg
I think all of the boilerplate projects you can find.
Are ONCE projects getting updates? We will find a year or two?
Your model is a subscription, we just don’t get to know when you decide to have a new major version and plan pricing / spend as a result.
csomar
He is selling updates. You pay once for 1.x. That's a fine and okay business model that has been functioning for very long.
krystofee
Their docs show throughput limits (e.g., 4 CPU = 60 errors/sec), but what happens during error spikes?
If my app crashes and blasts hundreds of errors in seconds, does Telebugs have built-in rate limiting or backpressure? Or do I need to overprovision hardware/implement throttling myself?
With SaaS tools, spike protection is their problem. With self-hosted, I’m worried about overwhelming my own infrastructure without adding complexity.
Anyone running this in production?
kyrylo
Hey, Telebugs creator here. Great questions! Right now, Telebugs doesn’t have built-in throttling, so during error spikes, you’d either need to handle it manually or overprovision. I do plan to add throttling in the future, similar to what Sentry does, to protect your infrastructure automatically.
Curious: for those running self-hosted error trackers in production, how do you currently handle sudden error spikes? Any clever tricks or patterns you swear by?
johneu88
The company I work for runs self hosted sentry. Sentry has something that tells you that events are being dropped due to pressure. I think every engineer in the company knows that this is happening but no one fixes it because no one has the time to look into it.
johneu88
Nice. I’m curious about what kind of customers are buying your product and where did you find them. It’s difficult to compete with someone like Sentry, and even though you have a better pay model, you don’t have the reputation, so I am rather curious about your customers and why they prefer your product. Are they indie devs looking for a cheaper solution?
kyrylo
Thanks! I’m not really competing with Sentry itself. I’m competing with self-hosted Sentry, which is notoriously hard to install and maintain (and has steeper hardware requirements).
I'd say my customers prefer my product because:
- They want self-hosting without the maintenance burden.
- They work in regulated or internal networks.
- They’re tired of subscription pricing.
- I build it in public and post regular updates on my social media.
- They value direct support from the creator.
P.S. I’ve personally worked for a Sentry competitor, so I know the pain points firsthand.
This project is inspired by 37signals’ ONCE idea. I replicated the whole process and have already sold a few copies (the testimonials are real).