- Ubicloud aims to provide an open source alternative to AWS by offering core cloud computing services on affordable bare-metal servers.
- The focus is currently on compute, PostgreSQL database service, networking capabilities, with plans to add block storage and Kubernetes-based container service.
- Co-founders have experience with Citus Data and Azure, and the company recently raised a $16 million seed round.
What does “open source” mean in this context? AWS is not software.
AWS is software. Just not something you can self host.
There already exist alternatives to AWS, like localstack, a local AWS for testing purposes, or the more mature openstack, which is designed for essentially running your own AWS at scale.
AWS offers a collection of services made from many systems running all sorts of different software working together. Which piece of software do they plan to make? Are they trying to make provisioning management software? Cause that’s called AWS Management Console. Are they trying to make compute resource provisioning and scaling software? Cause that’s called Amazon EC2. They can’t possibly think they’re going to recreate everything AWS offers.
Openstack skyline/horizon
Openstack nova
And so on. Openstack is also many, many components, that can be pieced together for your own cloud computing platform.
Although it won’t have the sheer number of services AWS has, many of them are redundant.
The core services I expect to see done first: compute, networking, storage (+ image storage), and a web UI/API
Next: S3 storage, Kubernetes as a service, and then either Databases as a service or containers as a service.
But you are right, many of the services that AWS offers are highly specialized (robotics, space communication), and people get locked in, and I don’t really expect to see those.