2 Open-Source Projects Walk Into a Bar - DevHunt Digest #5
Tags: opensource, devhunt, monitoring, typescript
Published: 2023-10-19 14:40:23

**[DevHunt](https://devhunt.org/) is the open-source platform where you can showcase your developer tool. Tools compete every week for the top spot. Here's a look at who's in the race this time.**

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## BCMS

[BCMS](https://github.com/bcms/cms) is an open-source headless CMS. Although I was unable to set it up, I really liked that BCMS has an immensely content rich documentation. Based on demo videos and screenshots, the tool is absolutely gorgeous. And it supports a bunch of frameworks.

I think the readme on GitHub needs some tweaks: I get the focus on features, and I'm pretty sure BCMS is unique where it promises to be. The problem is, my imagination is more receptive to use cases. Outlining a few scenarios and mentioning the most important functions might make it easier for the reader to really understand how BCMS is special. I think it'd be more useful to include an in-depth description of the features in the documentation instead.

I'd rather see how to use this tool and how the open-source community can interact with the project better. For example, [dyrector.io's readme](https://github.com/dyrector-io/dyrectorio#readme) does a good job at this.

Highlighting usability, pointing to resources about how to get started, and including channels where users can ask for help is a good list of ingredients for every readme.

My other issue was with the documentation of the installation of BCMS. I'd rather see this type of content in a blog post or a tutorial video. If the purpose of going through the process of creating a Digital Ocean VM is to imply that it's tested and more or less safe to use BCMS with that provider, then it's fine, but it's not mentioned anywhere, other than that it's a recommended provider by them.

## OpenStatus

[OpenStatus](https://github.com/openstatusHQ/openstatus) is an open-source monitoring service. There are three ways you can use OpenStatus: as a SaaS on their website, host it for yourself, or spark it up for development locally.

OpenStatus thrives at keeping things simple. I signed up on their website, and I'm immediately in the setup flow where I can add my URL and specify HTTP header settings. The tool offers capabilities you'd expect from a monitoring tool: status checking, visualization, and you can set up notifications, as well. Only area where I'd expect improvements is the integrations.

It's definitely worth checking out.

## Auto Localize

[Auto Localize](https://autolocalize.app/) is a localization tool that utilizes GPT. It's only for MacOS, so I couldn't test it. According to the demo video, you can localize your application by uploading the files, selecting the source and the output language and the tool will take care of the localization.

## tsParticles

[tsParticles](https://github.com/tsparticles/tsparticles) is an open-source TS library to create particle animations. I really like this project, the animations are great, supported by a lot of frameworks - no wonder that it has thousands of stars on GitHub and is used by more than 21k people.

## Coherence

[Coherence](https://www.withcoherence.com/) is a developer platform. You can set up your applications on AWS or GCP with the help of Coherence.

Let's just say that both the landing page and the tools actual UI looks stellar. Documentation is abundant in content, and I'm pretty sure the free tier is viable for most engineers working on a side project with 100 builds per month and two seats per account. In case you'd need more, well, you'll have to dig deep into your pockets, as the cheapest paid tier comes with a $400+ price tag.

The only con I found with Coherence, if I really need to note something, was during set up. I'm not really a fan of the interface of AWS, so I wasn't happy to directed to make permissions for Coherence, but I understand that it's a necessity.

## WarpBuild

[WarpBuild](https://www.warpbuild.com/) is a builder that promises to be faster and cheaper than GitHub actions.

Unfortunately there's no more than a landing page and a waitlist sign up right now, so I couldn't try it. There's still something I found very positive about the project: they'll offer free usage for open-source projects.

## Penako App Builder

[Penako](https://www.penako.com/) is an tool that turns websites into mobile applications. Let's start this review by saying that I don't like the weird cursor this time either, but at least it keeps the original, so it's better than last week's winner.

You can turn your website into an app by adding the URL and selecting one of the templates. I added one of my websites to it, and it works I suppose, I only checked out the demo. But it's a WordPress site, so Penako might utilizes its mobile optimization anyway. Can't tell if it does a good job at turning desktop-only websites to an application.

## Vrite

[Vrite](https://github.com/vriteio/vrite) is an open-source developer content platform.

First of all, I was reminded of Notion when I gave this tool a look. Except I don't like Notion at all, and I liked Vrite. This tool is relevant to engineers because it does Notion-like things in a non-Notion-like way. One of the main reasons why I despise Notion is because it's way too responsive to my liking, and there's a very particular way for doing anything with Notion.

You can edit your content with Markdown in Vrite. It utilizes Monaco Editor - hope the Linux crowd doesn't get too upset about it. It comes with a project management dashboard to support simultaneous documenting to coding. Vrite also has an API, so you can customize a lot of things about your developer content.

## EsyBlog

[EsyBlog](https://esyblog.com/) is a blogging platform that promises to be the most affordable blog website maker.

It seems like a cool blogging platform to start off your blogging career. I got some fake error messages when I made my account, but it worked out eventually. I appreciate that EsyBlog keeps things simple, however, it might be a good idea to introduce some more options of customization because right now there are two themes for blogs with only color customization options.

I like that you can connect Google Drive to it, can be very useful when you started to write in Google Docs and would like to publish somewhere.

## Zeabur

[Zeabur](https://github.com/zeabur/zeabur) is an open-source Platform-as-a-Service. After signing up for its free plan, I was directed to one of my favorite terms of services acceptance site ever, as shown below:

![Zaebur TOS listing what's not cool to do with it](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dmnck33l763wmt570ulv.png)

After signing up, you can create your project by selecting which AWS region you'd like to use. Only us-west-1 and ap-east-1 are available for free users, while enterprise accounts have access to GCP's asia-east1.

Now that the region is selected, you can decide if you'd like to deploy your project from git, or the images already available in Zeabur. I didn't count it but there are more than 2 dozens of images ready for deployments. You're not going to achieve a lot with the free tier because it comes with basic specs: 512 MB RAM, 1 vCPU, 1 GB disk. And you can create 1 project.

It's worth noting that the developer tier is a lot better offer for $5, but the pricing page needs an update because I can't tell if it's a monthly or an annual subscription fee, or a lifetime deal. I suppose it's a monthly price, so that's likely $5 per month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, and 64 GB disk space.

## Repodex

[Repodex](https://www.repodex.ai/) is a debugging automation tool. It works by going through your code on GitHub, making suggestions about fixes in a PR. It has Slack integration, as well.

## EdgeChains

[EdgeChains](https://github.com/arakoodev/edgechains) is an open-source generative AI framework. I'm certainly not the audience for this tool, so I can't really tell how good this is and I can't even say that I understand what EdgeChains is.

## VirtEngine Waldur

[VirtEngine Waldur](https://github.com/waldur) is an open-source orchestration platform to manage cloud resources.

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That's it for the weekly batch of developer tools that launched on DevHunt. What's your favorite project out of them? Leave it in the comments and show some love by casting a vote!