You are right, i've used heroku (haven't seen it in a while though, so thanks for the link). Maybe now it's simpler, but at this time last year, it wasn't.
Also, main problem with free-tiers is that meteor is CPU/RAM-intensive and they do not handle that very well. I'll have to check it up again though.
Surely, there are many ways of deploying meteor apps, but no true simple way (which is why i expected a lot from galaxy). Like a single production line: create > develop > deploy w/ scalable infrastructure and cost. That was the whole meteor attractiveness for me.
There was a meteor based project where i spent 2 weeks developing a prototype and almost a month trying different deploy setups with the client. (heroku, digital ocean, linode, modulus, compose, aws, etc...)
Now, with ember or react + firebase, i can do the same stuff at a fraction of the cost and without having to learn devOps.
I loved meteor. Was committed to it for 6/7 months while still learning JS (and working on ember and rails projects with others). I knew it was a risky decision, but it seemed like a good choice for making it as a one-man dev agency.
For me, there's no stack selection problem, for me, the main problem is the co$t of launching a working demo-app or a prototype. The only thing i wanted was a simpler/cheaper way of deploying apps.
I knew there was something coming, since the beginning i heard about galaxy, an MDG developed deploying solution, which i thought was the solution for all my problems. But then, then came the galaxy launch and its price ($495/mo). At that price I felt betrayed, misrepresented. (still waiting for the individual price several months after)
The big problem i see with meteor for the future, is that MDG has/will have to answer to its shareholders rather than its community.
Thanks for all the explanation. I though ending something with :P - could be universally understood as a bit of irony. I'm just happy with the announcement, and used MS fork and this announcement timing for my irony-driven-comment. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.
<3
Congrats Yehuda! You are a true inspiration, and i just want to thank you for everything you've done and i'm shure you'll take rust to another level. Congrats to Steve too. 2015, the year of rust(?) :P
Worth mentioning that there are many more solutions now than there were a year ago, when i was facing this challenge.