tripflag
7 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2025–2026
15:39 · 614K views · Jul 26, 2025
The author of copyparty introduces the FOSS file server he has built over five years, demoing its features such as resumable uploads, WebDAV and deduplication. The video itself is shown running on a demo server.
HN commenters call it a model demo video and the quickest way to see how much one developer packed into a self-hosted file server.
9 comments from Hacker News
I think "people" deserves clarification: Almost the entire thing was written by a single person and with a _seriously_ impressive feature set. The launch video is well worth a quick watch: this video I don't say this to diminish anyone else's contribution or criticize the software, just to call out the absolutely herculean feat this one person accomplished.
Copyparty is an amazing piece of software. I recommend watching the recent YouTube video for an overview[0]. The developer is a personal friend and my household is proud to own one of 20 limited edition copyparty disc releases. [0] this video
> into a file server This is underselling it by at least three orders of magnitude. This is astonishing tool, you have to watch the demo video: this video
One of my favorite piece of software was made by the guy with Termux on his phone [0], absolute insane [LINK] 0, this video
Put up a decent demo video on youtube so people can get an idea of how to use it, and start to see its potential. This will be neither quick nor easy. You'll have to decide on what kind of angle to approach it from: cold and 'just the facts' or light and funny using appropriately light and funny demo material, or somewhere in between. Match it to the market or demographic you're aiming for. Recent example of a great demo video that's gotten positive commentary on HN and in the YT comments: this video (this has the advantage of being a wizard-level piece of software). Also, use those differentiation examples on the homepage with the same "slide to show the difference" effect that the existing homepage example images have (they look generic, they give a very "just another AI image generator" vibe). Lastly, but probably should be firstly: Choose the one coolest, differentest thing your software does, and create the coolest, differentest example of the use of that thing, and press heavily on that. Lastly lastly, and probably should be firstly firstly, if you plan to do any of the above, then _fucking plan it out_ don't just go haphazardly into starting to make a video. Tell the boss the plan, including a rough idea of how long it might take to go from now to "available on youtube / homepage / anywhere else". By planning and scheduling, the boss can give you a yay or nay before you've actually done the work. It will also give the boss some confidence that you're thinking strategicall