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Comment by weddpros | Hacker News Reader

I built https://sslping.com/ to help monitor website TLS/SSL security and certificates. It has 300 users and checks almost 7000 servers every day for TLS problems.

It's a little like SSLlabs server test, only much faster (5 seconds instead of 2 minutes), plus the tests are recurring every day, and you receive the diff if any.

It's always been a joy to receive thank you emails from users, or adding new features for users.

SSLping also allowed me to learn React and Redux. I'm still working on it, adding new features and refactoring what I don't like.

If I ever have to stop hosting it, I'll open source the whole thing. Or maybe I'll open source it anyway. If I could find a deal with a security company, I would work on it fulltime.

I consider it's a success, even if the numbers are not as high as I'd like.

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FWIW, the site design is really nice. I like the brown, and the use of all-caps for the site name.

And of course 5 seconds is how fast it should be :P

EDIT: Wondered what constructive criticism I could add, in case it was useful.

I guess the one thing I'm thinking of that isn't there is a cert tree breakdown, showing the cert structure in an easy-to-read format (which can be done xD), showing the trust root used, etc etc. I'm also reminded of all the little incidents that have happened with different SSL providers, and wonder whether people would appreciate seeing "you're using XYZ cert provider, here are controversial things about them". A feature like this would require careful presentation to work at scale though. Now I understand why you took the "go/no-go" super-simple route!

I also discovered (after noticing the fun URL query approach you use when you type in a domain) that disabling JS results in a white screen. That's common nowadays, so no comment.

Thank you for this! I have a post-it note for sideproject ideas and wanted to build exact system. I'm glad you already built it :) Also glad I found out about it before building it myself.

It's good to hear! Feel free to use it and tell me if you have any suggestions, or anything really

I love it, way to go! You should submit it as a "Show HN" 1. You should charge for it. Maybe after a month of monitoring or something. 2. Give more actionable responses. Maybe some links or directions on how to fix the issues. 3. Can you make any money on affiliate links to paid certificates? If not, direct people to Letsencrypt when their cert expires.

Thanks! I did submit a Show HN, but I only got 1 or 2 upvotes and a few visitors... Go figure, this comment had more success!

As for charging or monetizing one way or another, I'm still thinking of the best way. It's not easy when you already have 300 free users.

And I've already considered giving more actionable advice, it's in the backlog already!

But thanks for your comments!

You can always give your free user's a discount or an extended free period. It's a pretty standard practice. Some will leave, some will pay. And that's ok.

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