Due to concerns that the launch button would funnel business to one vendor at the expense of others, Starshot leadership announced that the launch button would use WebAssembly to run site trials in a user’s browser without external hosting. This approach has the advantages of being able to run Drupal off line and not needing anyone to pay for hosting. However, it is technically challenging and will not work for everyone. Sites running in WebAssembly cannot be visited by others and are not persistent.
The startup time and performance of trial sites launched from Drupal Forge are much better than those of sites running in WebAssembly. We are currently working on pre-launching trial sites so that users do not have to wait for a site to start up after clicking the launch button. A site launched from Drupal Forge can be visited by anyone who has the URL. DevPanel covers the cost of site trials for now. Eventually we expect product owners to cover the cost of site trials from subscription revenue.
Drupal Forge only offers trial sites. Any vendor can offer site trials on Drupal Forge if we can launch them from a Webform. We are being careful to set up the transition from Drupal Forge to persistent hosting in a way that will support the Drupal Association’s existing relationships with hosting vendors.
We plan to offer migration pathways to persistent hosting from any vendor a user may choose. At first we thought we would have to write code for migration pathways ourselves. But site migration is also needed for trial sites running in WebAssembly, so whatever works there will also work for Drupal Forge. We plan to work with Matt Glaman on this feature. We invite vendors to work with us to make transitions to persistent hosting seamless.
I think DevPanel deserves a plug for their support. I am neither an employee of nor an investor in DevPanel. DevPanel is not a hosting vendor and will not offer persistent hosting. However, they have provided working software to launch site trials from Drupal Forge. Anyone who wants to sell persistent hosting can use their software to provide a seamless transition from trial sites to persistent hosting.