Launching ZipZen – lightweight release hosting for binaries

Hey Indie Hackers, I just launched ZipZen a simple release hosting platform built for developers who ship binaries.

Most of us start with GitHub Releases because it is right there in the repo. It works fine for attaching a zip or tarball, but once you rely on it for real distribution, it starts to get messy:

• Poor user experience: Users have to manually pick files. Direct URLs exist but they are long and brittle. No built-in support for package managers.

• No download insights: You cannot see which versions are popular or how many times a binary was downloaded. Maintaining multiple builds becomes guesswork.

• Limited automation: GitHub Actions lets you attach artifacts, but there is no API for stats, no built-in APT/YUM repo support, and you end up gluing scripts together.

For projects shipping binaries, what we really need is:

• Easy hosting and sharing of binaries

• Download analytics

• Support for package managers (APT/YUM)

• CI/CD integration without friction

• A service focused on binaries, not an afterthought

That's exactly what ZipZen does. Right now, you get reliable binary hosting, zero-config APT/YUM package repos, and download statistics (more detailed analytics coming soon).

I built this because GitHub Releases just doesn’t scale for real binary distribution. If you are facing the same pain points, check it out and let me know what you think.

Would love to hear from the community: how do you handle distributing binaries today?