Nodejitsu
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Cloud computing, Platform as a service |
| Founder | Charlie Robbins, Marak Squires, Paolo Fragomeni |
| Defunct | 2015 |
| Fate | Acquired by GoDaddy and withdrew from PaaS sector |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
Area served | United States, Europe |
Key people | Jeff Jackson (COO), Jason Smith (CTO) |
| Products | Node.js hosting platform, IrisNPM service, CouchDB and Redis provisioning |
| Parent | GoDaddy |
Nodejitsu Inc was a cloud-based platform as a service (PaaS) specializing in Node.js by hosting applications built on this technology. Its headquarters were located in New York City, with data centers situated across the United States and Europe.
In February 2015, Nodejitsu was purchased by GoDaddy and subsequently withdrew from the PaaS sector.
History
Established by Charlie Robbins, Marak Squires, and Paolo Fragomeni, Nodejitsu earned recognition as the pioneering Node.js platform-as-a-service provider. In April 2012, it formed a partnership with Joyent; following Joyent’s discontinuation of its No.de PaaS in November 2012, Nodejitsu was recommended as an alternative.
On May 22, 2013, Nodejitsu expanded by acquiring IrisCouch, merging both its personnel and technologies to deliver an integrated solution for deploying Node.js applications alongside provisioning of CouchDB and Redis databases. This acquisition brought Jeff Jackson into the role of chief operations officer and Jason Smith as chief technical officer. The IrisNPM service was incorporated into Nodejitsu’s platform, which maintained support for private NPM repositories despite lacking a formal pricing structure.
In June 2013, Nodejitsu attracted notice as an early recipient of investment from Bloomberg Beta, a $75 million venture fund led by former IGN executive Roy Bahat.
Open Source
Upholding its commitment to open source, Nodejitsu manages numerous projects hosted on their Github repositories. Since January 2013, they have provided one complimentary server (drone) dedicated to open-source applications. To qualify, applications must include a publicly accessible source code repository.
Controversy
In December 2010, Nodejitsu faced a ban on Hacker News amid accusations directed at Marak Squires involving spamming and allegations that Nodejitsu encouraged users to artificially inflate votes on their posts. CEO Charlie Robbins responded by explaining that users receive subdomains for their applications, which are commonly shared on Hacker News seeking feedback. The ban resulted in the removal of all content containing Nodejitsu domains. This prohibition was lifted in October 2011, as announced by Paul Graham.