Aspen breaks your most used apps out of your browser and gives you instant access to them from anywhere on your desktop. Apps like Gmail, LinkedIn, Github, or any URL can be opened in a single click from the Aspen dock or with a customizable keyboard shortcut.
This looks really neat! On Macs, how is this on resources (RAM, CPU)? Can you tell me a bit more about how this works?
I can see it's currently in beta (I applied for an invite), how do you plan on monetizing Aspen Cloud?
@leo_at_zapier great question! We use Chromium to render web pages but throttle any background pages that aren't visible. So compared to a browser tab each app uses about the same resources but compared to using an Electron app we're much lighter! e.g. using Notion via Aspen uses less resources than the official Notion desktop app.
We're still in private beta (but onboarding new users each week!) so during that time you'll be able to try Aspen for free but we plan on charging a monthly subscription per user once we're publically available.
@leo_at_zapier To add to Matt's comment, Aspen's UX and design also keep you from having extraneous tabs/windows/apps consuming resources when you dont need them - this also keeps Aspen's consumption low.
Aspen is really awesome. I have been using it for easily opening my google calendar / Gmail as well as some other sites. It works particularly well of things that you wanna have a quick glance at (eg. a google doc or as in my case the calendar).
Congrats on the launch Matt and Will! I love having Aspen on my desktop and very excited to see where the product goes in the next few months. I am very much a daily active user and highly recommend this product!
Hey Hunters!
I'm Matt, co-founder of Aspen Cloud - here with my other co-founder, Will (@will_ernst). We're both excited to share what we've been working on! We built Aspen because we spent a ton of time working within the confines of a browser window (Chrome for me, Firefox for Will) and were getting slowed down by having so many different apps and contexts all sharing the same tabbed window. So as two experienced software engineers, we decided to build something that could help us regain some control over the tabbed mess that we were dealing with.
Aspen is not just another "browser for work". Aspen breaks your apps *free* of the browser. And believe us, this is way better than working in a single window. We know because we originally started to build a "better browser for work" and quickly realized that we didn't want a new browser - we wanted to be able to respond to an email, open developer documentation, or jot down a note without disrupting our workflow, *sans browser*.
Aspen is a rethinking of how we use web applications, giving you a highly configurable space to fly through your workflows faster and more seamlessly than ever before. This includes:
- Configurable keyboard shortcuts to quickly open/switch apps or to configure your workspace
- Single-purpose app windows for each document or app you open to help you stay focused on the task at hand
- Customizable app dock that is always one click away from any window — like Speed Dial for your apps
Some examples of things you can do really easily with Aspen:
- Take notes during a Zoom call without opening your browser
- Read comments on a Pull Request without leaving your IDE
- Respond to an email without leaving the document you're working on
- Check an internal dashboard without leaving your Slack conversation
We'll stick around for a bit, so feel free to drop any questions you have!
@felipeph Aspen uses chromium under the hood, so most browser security concerns around running code for multiple apps are handled at that level. Aspen collects some usage data to help improve the product, but will not share or sell that data with third parties - it's simply not the way we plan to monetize, nor is it the type of product we want to build. If you have any specific security concerns let me know.
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@will_ernst Good. I've been test Firework, a similar app. But security aspect made me doubt. Until now I use Brave browser.
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