A while back, I set up a private crate registry for personal projects, and the experience turned me into something of an evangelist for how big a difference a private registry makes compared to using path- or git-based dependencies in your Cargo.toml.
Until that point I had for a long time just accepted the small tediums of using paths and/or git branches/tags. When I did finally set up a registry, remember thinking, "this is great!", then realizing it's the same great experience as normal deps from Crates.io, and wondering why the contrast hadn't been more obvious before.
More recently, I was researching setting up a private registry for Keyrock, and wasn't super happy with the available options for a hosted service. There are a couple, and Cloudsmith deserves credit for being the first. But the existing options are 1) extremely enterprise, including in pricing, and 2) universal package/artifact managers with a much larger scope than I was looking for.
The vision I had for Shipyard.rs was simple:
- Rust-centric: built by, and designed for, Rust developers, with easy cargo compatibility
- More accessible pricing
The result is Shipyard.rs, a new private crates registry service.