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christianselig
apollo-backend
Go2023–2023
christianselig / apollo-backend · Archived

apollo-backend

Apollo backend server

Systems & Infrastructure
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
14Distinct people
15Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
3.6KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Apollo backend server

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

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Also in these discussions

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This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by week15 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2023-06-09 03:25:53 UTC to 2023-07-12 14:27:34 UTC. Weeks start Monday, UTC.

02462023-06-05 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-06-12 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 2 submissions, 3 commentsJun 52023-06-12 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-06-19 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 7 mentions; 0 submissions, 7 comments2023-06-19 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-06-26 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 commentsJun 192023-06-26 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-07-03 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023-07-03 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-07-10 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2023-07-10 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-07-17 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 commentsJul 10

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
Jun 52023-06-05 00:00:00 UTC2023-06-12 00:00:00 UTC523
Jun 122023-06-12 00:00:00 UTC2023-06-19 00:00:00 UTC707
Jun 192023-06-19 00:00:00 UTC2023-06-26 00:00:00 UTC000
Jun 262023-06-26 00:00:00 UTC2023-07-03 00:00:00 UTC202
Jul 32023-07-03 00:00:00 UTC2023-07-10 00:00:00 UTC000
Jul 102023-07-10 00:00:00 UTC2023-07-17 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

15 sources
flutas·Jun 14, 2023
Not sure why you're making up stuff still and cherry picking constants to try and pretend you're right. Those rates are BEST CASE. I linked the code directly to you that actually does it in your previous comment. They queue 100[0] users every 5[1] seconds to pull their status, they then update the next check timestamp in the db to be at now + the constant you quote[2] which they use for rate limiting, so at most once per minute. So unless they have under 1,000 users, then it won't ever be "every single minute." [0]: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/b992d2... [1]: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/b992d2... [2]: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/b992d2...
In Reddit Doubles Down
shagie·Jun 14, 2023
The average user doing ~300 api calls per day would do about 9000 calls per month and at $0.24/1k calls would be $2/user Apollo also does polling of the message box for each user for push notifications ( https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/main/i... ) which currently has a rate of 1/minute/user. This is another 1.4k calls per day and changes the price that would be paid. Current rate: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/b992d2... March 16th rate update (6 r/m to 1r/m): https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/commit/74a8... Nov 22nd rate update (12 r/m to 6 r/m): https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/commit/7582...
In Reddit Doubles Down
flutas·Jun 13, 2023
> The mobile front end does about 345 calls/user/day > The push notification server does 8640 calls/user/day (one call every 10 seconds). I've seen you parroting this around in every thread, and don't understand why. First of all, none of the math checks out with your theory. But I'll break down why. Here[0] he says Apollo has over 100k DAUs (I noticed you've also stopped using that link...). He also says > At 100,000+ users, that's in the realm of 60 million requests per hour that my server would have to handle, not to mention parsing the results, coordinating tokens, etc. I really can't do that for nothing, so the plan was to offer push notifications with a small fee associated to cover these ongoing server costs. > I also offer a completely free system that does not use a server so those who don't want to have to pay can have their dev
Read the rest
ice function as the server and use local notifications (which are slightly delayed as it uses Background Fetch and using the device uses more battery), but remote notifications necessitate a server. > If there's nothing that can be done, Apollo won't be able to offer push notifications unfortunately. He has stated here[1] that API pricing would cost him "almost $2m per month." So let's check the math. 345 + 8640 API calls / user / day = 8985 / user / day 8,985 API calls x 100,000 users = 898,500,000 / day Using the absolute average month of 30.4375 days: 30.4375 x 898,500,000 = 27,348,093,750 req / month (@ 100k users) Or in API pricing $6,563,542.50 / month, which is almost 3x as much as he said it would cost. > Note that it does a request every 10 seconds for each user. At the API rate that would be about $0.25 every 3 hours (for each user) to support it. They only do that for each user, that has paid for and has an active Apollo Ultra ($5/mo) subscription. That's going to remove a significant chunk of users. If you want to verify any of this for yourself, the backend code is also now fully readable[2]. But it looks like from their backend code, they do a maximum of 100 users[3] every 5 seconds[4]. Additionally, that's Reddit just being stupid not them. Reddit offers no alternative way to get real-time notifications from their API, and with the paid API won't as well. [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/9l3ema/apollo_13... [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_w... [2]: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend [3]: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/b992d2... [4]: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/b992d2...
In Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
raldi·Jun 13, 2023
Just at a glance, and maybe I'm reading it wrong, but this appears to be issuing six requests every five seconds: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend/blob/main/i... See also: > On March 14th, Apollo made nearly 1 billion requests against our API in a single day, triggered in part by our system outage. After the outage, Apollo started making 53% fewer calls per day. If the app can operate with half the daily request volume, can it operate with fewer? https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_upda...
In Ask HN: Legality of archiving/re-hosting Reddit content
yosito·Jun 9, 2023
GitHub repo link, in case Reddit deletes the thread: https://github.com/christianselig/apollo-backend Interestingly, this seems to just be a proof of concept, and the repo is archived. While the developer of the Apollo front end is getting screwed in this whole debacle, this seems to me like an opportunity. He could literally build an alternate Reddit back end (ok, pay someone to do it, if he doesn't want to do it himself), switch Apollo to use that API instead, and get an instant network of hundreds of thousands of Apollo users. A mass migration from Reddit to a new Apollo back end seems like an amazing way to start a new social news website.
In Apollo Back end just made public

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