Snapify: I built an open-source Loom alternative

Marcon@discuss.tchncs.de to Selfhosted@lemmy.world – 188 points –

Hey there! I built an open-source tool called Snapify, which is designed to make screen recording sharing a breeze, just like Loom, but with the added benefit of being completely open-source.

Let's say you quickly want to get a message across, there are three main ways:

  1. Get into a meeting
  2. Write a wall of text
  3. Share a quick recording

Recordings will look like this (new link): https://snapify.it/share/clk3mpgnu0003mj0f042964wg

I'd love to hear your feedback and ideas on how I may be able to improve the app. Is anyone here using Loom?

Here is the link: https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify Here is my Twitter: https://twitter.com/Marcon565

21

Hey, looks neat.

Hope you're open to constructive criticism - I'd take a look at adding some production value to your how it works video.

I work with a lot of martech folks that do product videos (I'm not selling you something) and I'd recommend a super straight forward marketing video that shows how easy the product is to use and share videos with.

Get literally any budget microphone and record your audio voiceover VERY clearly in a closet and lay that over a simple workflow for capturing a video with snapify then sharing it. Add some royalty free background music at low volume and it'll help sell this for you significantly more than your current video is doing.

This is not the Loom I was hoping for.

@AbidanYre I was hoping it would be a Jaquard. Maybe self host the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A\_Jacquard\_loom\_showing\_information\_punchcards,\_National\_Museum\_of\_Scotland.jpg that hold the programing. Those card have been used 200+ years later to exactly recreate historical textiles for restoration purposes. That is some datahoarding!

Back on topic, I wish people would do more to describe their projects than say it's "like x". I don't know all the different existing projects so its meaningless.

@Marcon

Looks cool! I went to docker hub to see if you already have an image...there's at least 1 other "snapify" that's not you, I think. :( i've used Loom a few times - it would be nice to self-host this service.

I am providing docker containers, although they are hosted on Github: https://github.com/MarconLP/snapify/pkgs/container/snapify

You can deploy snapify as a docker container using this command: docker run -d --name snapify-web -e DATABASE_URL="" -e NEXTAUTH_SECRET="REPLACESTRING" -e NEXTAUTH_URL="http://localhost:3000/" -e GITHUB_ID="" -e GITHUB_SECRET="" -e AWS_ENDPOINT="" -e AWS_REGION="" -e AWS_KEY_ID="" -e AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY="" -e AWS_BUCKET_NAME="" -p 3000:3000 ghcr.io/marconlp/snapify:latest

Do you support local storage for self hosting using docker?

Snapify works with any S3 compatible api. You could self-host min.io and use that.

Nice job! But Prisma.. Prisma... Why do people still use prisma?

What do you recommend?

I prefer query builders like slonik, or just raw. Prisma does crazy stuff with joins which turns what should be a simple query into 300 queries. Its a well documented problem in their issue tracker. I've not worked on a single repo that didn't eventually move away from it with growth, including in a professional capacity. On top of that, you put in an ORM and everyone ends up using the same DB anyway, so you lose out on potential optimizations.

Your project looks interesting. Do you have plans to give snapify the ability to federate and share with others?

Do you have plans to give snapify the ability to federate and share with others?

Could you explain what you mean by "federate and share with others"?

I used to use Loom, and I love the idea of having it self hosted. I read the the git page and have a simple question (I'm not a very advanced user): How does this work?

Loom runs as a desktop client (Windows in my case) and then there is the server side software that handles serving the videos to others. From what I can tell there is no local client.

I have not used Loom, and I'm not sure what your video is trying to show. It's not clear what this tool does, or what problem it's trying to solve, and how it solves it.