Freedium: Your paywall breakthrough for Medium!

Stack:

• Backend:
  • language: Python 3.9+
  • framework: Unicorn, FastAPI
• Frontend:
  • framework: Tailwinds CSS v3, Jinja2
  • monitoring: Sentry
• Database:
  • PostgreSQL, Dragonfly (Redis and Memcached compatible key-value database)
• Utils:
  • Caddy, Docker, Docker Compose, Cloudflare WARP proxy (wgcf)

Project configuration:

There is three (3) docker-compose profiles:

• min - without 2 Cluster of Cloudflare WARP proxy, HAProxy proxy balancer, Plausible, Grafana.
• local - based on min, but with freedium.local exposed hostname, both 80 and 443 ports are exposed, with self-signed TLS certificate.
• prod - with all services for production.

Requirements:

• Docker, Docker Compose, last version is preferred.
• Linux, preferably rolling release. We can't guarantee that Freedium instance will work on other OS. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 and Fedora 39.
• git
• Preferably, fresh and clean brain.

Local run:

To configure your Freedium instance, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://codeberg.org/Freedium-cfd/web/ ./freedium-web --depth 1
   cd ./freedium-web
   

2. Create and configure the environment file:

   cp .env_template .env
   

   Open the .env file and adjust the values as needed for your setup.

3. (Optional) Set up the Docker network:

   sudo docker network create caddy_net
   

4. Change your hosts file:

   sudo nano /etc/hosts
   # or
   vim /etc/hosts
   # and when you are closed vim, type `:w !sudo tee %` to save file without executing vim in root mode
   

   Add the following line:

   127.0.0.1 freedium.local
   

5. Start the Freedium services (min profile):

   sudo docker compose --profile local -f ./docker-compose/docker-compose.yml up
   

   Stopping the services:

   sudo docker compose --profile local -f ./docker-compose/docker-compose.yml down
   

And now you can access local instance of Freedium by opening browser and type https://freedium.local. There is would be a warning about insecure connection, because we use self-signed TLS certificate. Ignore it.

Production run:

All production services are running on prod profile. If you use Dockerized reverse proxy, you can specify network caddy_freedium_net with external: true option in networks section of your reverse proxy container. Specify caddy_freedium hostname with port 6752 (or 6753 for Plausible) in your reverse proxy configuration.

As alternative, you can directly change docker-compose configurations to use your reverse proxy. See docker-compose and caddy folders for more details.

Architecture:

graph TB
    subgraph "Main Application"
        fw[freedium_web]
        cdy[caddy_freedium]
    end

    subgraph "Database Layer"
        rds[redis_service<br/>DragonFlyDB]
        pg[(postgres_freedium<br/>PostgreSQL)]
        pgadm[pgadmin4_freedium]
    end

    subgraph "Proxy Layer"
        hpb[haproxy-proxy-balancer]

        subgraph "WGCF Cluster 1"
            wg1[wgcf1]
            d1[dante_1]
            wh1[wgcf1_healthcare_service]
        end

        subgraph "WGCF Cluster 2"
            wg2[wgcf2]
            d2[dante_2]
            wh2[wgcf2_healthcare_service]
        end
    end

    subgraph "Analytics"
        pls[freedium_plausible]
        pldb[(plausible_db)]
        pledb[(plausible_events_db<br/>ClickHouse)]
    end

    subgraph "Utility"
        ah[autoheal]
    end

    %% Dependencies
    fw -->|depends_on| hpb
    d1 -->|depends_on| wg1
    d2 -->|depends_on| wg2
    wg2 -->|depends_on| wg1
    hpb -->|depends_on| wg1
    hpb -->|depends_on| wg2
    pls -->|depends_on| pldb
    pls -->|depends_on| pledb

    %% Network Connections
    subgraph "Networks"
        fn[freedium_net]
        cn[caddy_net]
        pn[plausible_net]
    end

    fw ---|freedium_net| fn
    cdy ---|freedium_net & caddy_net| fn
    rds ---|freedium_net| fn
    pg ---|freedium_net| fn
    pgadm ---|freedium_net| fn
    hpb ---|freedium_net| fn
    wg1 ---|freedium_net| fn
    wg2 ---|freedium_net| fn
    wh1 ---|freedium_net| fn
    wh2 ---|freedium_net| fn
    pls ---|all networks| fn

    %% Port Exposures
    cdy -->|":6752"| ext1[External Access]
    fw -->|":7080"| ext2[External Access]
    pgadm -->|":5433"| ext3[External Access]

    classDef service fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,color:white
    classDef network fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,color:white
    classDef database fill:#e74c3c,stroke:#c0392b,color:white
    classDef proxy fill:#f1c40f,stroke:#f39c12,color:black
    classDef utility fill:#9b59b6,stroke:#8e44ad,color:white
    classDef external fill:#95a5a6,stroke:#7f8c8d,color:white

    class fw,cdy,pls service
    class rds,pg,pldb,pledb database
    class hpb,wg1,wg2,d1,d2 proxy
    class ah,wh1,wh2 utility
    class fn,cn,pn network
    class ext1,ext2,ext3 external

Loading

Roadmap

• Speed up parser logic
• Parse articles directly to Markdown
• Add more services than just a Medium
• Rewrite frontend to Svelte
• Integrate Grafana/Prometheus/Plausible to monitor our services
• Translate posts to different languages using translatepy library
• AI-powered summary of posts