January 3, 2026
Cloud-flare or clout-flare?
Show HN: Vibe Coding a static site on a $25 Walmart Phone
Internet fights over $25 Walmart phone website: hack or hype
TLDR: A $25 Walmart Motorola phone was turned into a pocket web server using an Android terminal and Linux tools. The comments debated subsidized pricing, Cloudflare’s role, and whether extra Linux add-ons are overkill, splitting the crowd between smart thrift and smoke-and-mirrors skepticism
The internet just discovered you can turn a $25 Walmart Motorola Moto G into a pocket web host, and the comments went feral. The demo site walmartphone.stetsonblake.com shows a phone running a website via Termux (a terminal app that brings Linux tools to Android) and optional “full Linux” add‑ons like Andronix or proot‑distro. Cue the split: utopiah wants it simple—“just Termux with nginx,” or even a one‑tap static server from F‑Droid—while others love the kitchen‑sink approach.
Then trvz drops the bomb: the $25 price is likely carrier‑subsidized, so the thrift flex might be more marketing than miracle. Meanwhile andy99 questions the Cloudflare tunnel, asking if visitors are actually getting the page from Cloudflare’s network instead of the phone. In plain speak: Cloudflare can act like a friendly bouncer and middleman, which is great for safety—but it makes some wonder if the phone is doing the real work.
The “vibe coding” angle with Claude Code adds gasoline. One commenter bragged about shipping a major redesign from the couch with AI, sparking cheers and side‑eye. And forgotpwd16 calls the title spin: it’s just setting up a budget phone, not a new lifestyle. Fans joke it’s the “Raspberry Pi you already own,” others dub it a “pocket data center.” You can even run a Minecraft server—peak overachiever energy. Verdict? A fun hack, heavy on vibes, light on consensus
Key Points
- •A $25 Motorola Moto G 2025 from Walmart can be turned into a portable Linux development environment using Termux.
- •Termux and add-ons should be installed from F-Droid because the Play Store version is abandoned and incompatible with mixed sources.
- •The phone can host a live website and run services like Nginx, cloudflared tunnels, Prometheus node exporter, Grafana, and a Minecraft server.
- •SSH access is enabled via OpenSSH/sshd on port 8022, with steps to set a password, find the IP, connect from another device, and auto-start on boot using Termux:Boot.
- •Full Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Debian, Arch) can be installed without root using Andronix or the built-in proot-distro, leveraging proot to emulate a Linux root filesystem.