PlatformLayer lets you run anything as a service: MySQLaaS, RedisAAS, NginxAAS, DnsAAS etc. It's based on the code & know-how from running MySQL-as-a-service for FathomDB.
I'm planning a series of explanatory blog posts & better documentation. In the meantime, I'll hang out here to answer any questions.
But the big difference is one of scope: PlatformLayer makes it easy/easier to build a service like DotCloud. You could choose to run it internally (e.g. if you want to run on a private cloud). You could choose to make it publicly available as a DotCloud competitor (maybe not today, but soon!)
The end-goal is that it will be much easier to build these services, so there will be more of them, covering any software you want to run. So if you just want to consume services your options should be better, cheaper and more numerous; even if you never run PlatformLayer directly.
But this is the beginning of a project, where DotCloud is a useful hosting platform today.
NodeSocket looks cool - would you mind sharing a bit about how you built it? Would PlatformLayer have helped?
