After nearly 5 years of being on Replit, I have made the decision to leave the platform.
(TLDR: This decision could impact the juanr4140.com site while I switch hosting providers.)
Mind you, this decision was not easy, and
I'm still unsure on where to go next from here, but it is not in my best interest to continue with Replit.
The Beginning
I was 12 when I was first introduced to Replit. Some college students were invited to our little rural school to teach us a little bit
of Python. Not too many people were chosen to be in the computer lab when this was happening, but I was so lucky to be one of them.
I was in 6th grade, so they picked some 6th graders (myself included) and brought us to the lab. There, we signed up for an account, created
a Python repl, and started coding. We were taught printing, input, variables, comparisons, if statements and loops. I was hooked! I managed to
get the hang of it fairly quickly while others had to spend a little more time grasping a concept. Some just weren't interested at all. At the end
of the lesson, we were encouraged to make a small project based on what we had learnt. I quickly got to work and started making a text adventure game.
It was bad, obviously, but I was proud. The students must have noticed my dedication, since when it was time for the 7th graders to have a turn, I was
invited AGAIN to continue working on what I was doing! It was awesome, I finished the small game, a girl came up to me, saw what I was doing, told the students,
and next thing I knew there was a group of students huddled around my computer seeing me test my game. From that moment on, I spent a lot of my time on Replit.
I'd make a few small Python games, then emailed them to one of the students that came to teach. He'd reply to them in an encouraging way, which motivated me to keep going!
The Middle
Eventually, I started branching out more. After Python, I became interested in web development and gave HTML5 a try. I made small static websites at first, then made them
a little more complex by adding server-side code to it. What Replit really helped during this time was the fact that they provided free hosting. I could easily create a site
and share it with my friends! Being able to host sites on Replit was a huge help, and without that ability I might've been discouraged at that time. I also got into making
discord bots, and made a few using the Discord.js library. These are all things that Replit was able to provide, free of cost. It really helped me as a developer to learn without
having to spend time on setting up an environment.
After a few talks of convincing from some friends, I started getting more involved with computers, starting to delve deeper into how it worked. I started learning C++ but found
it confusing (to this day I do not use C++!). However though, I started getting more into C and it is by far my most favorite language. Replit was able to provide an environment
where I could run C code with the push of a green button, rather than installing a compiler on my Windows machine, then running commands on the command line to get it to run. (It
is second nature now, but to 13 year old me it was daunting!) On this aspect though, I have no trouble with Replit (It is mostly web related). I also started to get a little into
x86 assembly, and made a small operating system when I was 14, or in 8th grade! It's obviously really scuffed, but I am proud that it's a real operating system where the kernel
is loaded into memory from a boot loader. (A lot of projects trending on Replit around this time were "operating systems" that were really just shells).
By this time, programming was (and still is) a serious thing for me that I hope to make into a career. And Replit had been alongside me the whole way! That, however, would soon,
unfortunately, change.
The End
It started around 9th grade, or around a bit more than a year ago or so. Artificial Intelligence was gaining a lot of traction. I have never been a fan of AI (although I would
be a hypocrite if I said I didn't use AI products every once in a while), but I couldn't deny it would be the "next big thing". Although useful, a lot of companies started
transitioning into "AI"-centric companies simply because it was the buzz-word, the cool word, the cool company to be. Your company was not cool if it didn't utilize AI to an extent.
Sadly, Replit headed into this direction. Replit added Ghostwriter, their AI autocomplete, and it was pretty good. I enjoyed using it. It was a trial though, and you had to start
paying to keep using it, which I didn't. Overnight, their social media and branding pushed heavily into the "AI" gimmick. I was disappointed, to say the least. To see this company head
into a direction so many others were as well was disheartening. Sadly, it wouldn't be the end.
Come end of 2023, and Replit made the biggest change yet that was sadly enough to make me move away from using the platform.
Replit free hosting will be severely limited, and, at this point, just gone. They've introduced the "Deployments" feature, where you are able
to push to the public your website. Starting January 1st, 2024, Deployments will be the only way to host on Replit. The problem? Replit charges you
to deploy. $20/mo for Replit Core, which gives you access to deploy. To my understanding, this applies to
dynamic websites (such as those with a Node.js backend), where static sites should remain unaffected (but are still expected to be deployed). That is a problem for me, however, as I have a
dynamic website I need to host for one of my teachers. Such price is outrageous to me as a 16 year old with no job (Although I am looking into working). For this reason, I have no option but to bid farewell to the platform after
nearly 5 years.
The now
What am I to do now? That is still something I have to figure out. Apart from hosting issues, I am still having domain issues as well but I expect to resolve them in the next couple days.
As to where I'll host my sites now, I have no idea. I am stuck between Heroku or a VPS (Which are both cheaper options). I'll probably go with the latter and configure a server or the like. For now, we will have to wait and see.
I'll probably see how the sites holds up until January 1st, then decide accordingly. Only time will tell.
Apart from web hosting, I have no use for Replit anymore. I use GitHub now to store files on the cloud, and I am comfortable with setting up developer environments to build practically anything
that I'd want to. At the end of the day, I can understand the pricing changes and why they're happening (free hosting can't be maintainable forever!), but it is still sad to see it go. I hope that Replit has
helped others as much as it had helped me, and I wish I was able to speak with David one more time. I wonder what he'd think of me right now.
It's time for bed. Goodnight my chdilren reading this, Now you see what I go through at 16 while you are probably.. watching "cringe" videos on YouTube.
Or whoever is reading this. Either my children or random strangers. Goodnight and Merry Christmas 2023!!
P.S: I got $20 for Christmas!!! I expect to use it for a) my domain or b) a VPS to start transferring the dynamic websites to in order to host there instead. :)