Self-host the editor

EnterraEdit runs in two ways and both are available today. The hosted build is one script tag from our CDN. The self-hosted build is the same editor, compiled from source and served from your own infrastructure, with no external dependency at all.

Most people use the hosted build and should. Self-hosting is for the cases where it is genuinely the better answer, and there are three of them.

When self-hosting is worth it

The first is a policy that does not allow third-party scripts. If your content security policy or your own rules prohibit loading JavaScript from a domain you do not control, the hosted build is not an option regardless of how good it is. A guide to running it under exactly that constraint is in running it under a strict CSP.

The second is latency or availability. A script served from your own server on the same connection as the page arrives without a second DNS lookup and a second TLS handshake, and it cannot fail because somebody else's service is having a bad day.

The third is simply wanting the whole thing on disk. The editor is yours under the MIT license, and taking the source is a legitimate way to treat it.

Building it

Clone the repository and build it with the package manager's build script. It is a Node project, so Node and npm need to be present, and the build produces the same minified file the CDN serves.

git clone https://github.com/enterrahost/enterraedit
cd enterraedit && npm install && npm run build

The build output goes where the project's own documentation says. You do not need to understand the build to use it, but you do need to re-run it when you take a newer version, which is the one piece of maintenance self-hosting adds.

What actually differs between the two

Less than people assume. It is the same editor with the same features, and both are MIT licensed.

The difference is one small attribution badge, and it is worth being precise about where it comes from. The hosted build adds the badge, and the self-hosted build adds nothing to your page at all.

The badge is not a license condition. The MIT license does not require it on either build and never did. It is set on the hosted build because that is what pays for the CDN, which is an honest arrangement rather than a restriction, and it means you can remove it from the hosted build too if you would rather. Removing it and continuing to use our bandwidth is the one thing that is bad manners rather than forbidden.

What you take on

Self-hosting moves the responsibility to you, and it is worth naming what that means rather than leaving it implied.

Updates are yours to apply. A fix that ships to the hosted build reaches you only when you rebuild, and there is no notification that a new version exists unless you watch the repository. If you self-host because of an availability concern, that concern is now your server's uptime rather than ours.

Neither of those is a reason not to. They are the ordinary trade for removing a third-party dependency, and most teams that choose self-hosting already accept them for everything else they run.

Trying it before deciding

The editor is live on the EnterraEdit page rather than shown as a screenshot, so the quickest way to decide is to use it there. If you are still weighing up the two delivery methods, serving it from the CDN covers the hosted path and when it is enough.