Web hosting

[tedj]

Hey there.

 

Topic title says it all. I need to get my own very first web hosting where I can start hosting the stuff I'm doing, but I am absolutely blind as to which one. I've been reading reviews for hours and everyone's pointing at different directions, and I don't even know what I should have as a hosting requirement (Do I need or should I get a VPS? How much space do I need? Should I get cloud, or normal server? And so on). I have seen some plans but from what I've seen, I'd like to keep up with at most 10$ a month and have at least 2 or 3 domains.

 

So, if some of you have any thoughts on the subject, please enlighten me.

 

Edit:

After reading my own post I noticed how uninformed it was.

So here are the specs I'm looking for:

• Reliable and trustworthy
• Able to run server-side javascript very good, as it will have to host NodeJS for my games
• Space (since I will make it my personal server, not only for games, and may include the hosting of personal stuff - 30gb is more than enough for me)
• Good costumer support
• Easy to work with (uploading, FTP and so on)
• Around 10-20$ a month is just fine

And my doubts are:

• Do I need a VPS for this? (Since it will act as my personal server too, maybe shared isn't the best option)
• Should I go with Cloud hosting?
• Is 1 or 2 GB of RAM enough to run heavy server side scripting?
• I have seen Dreamhost reviews and they seem to pull ahead of the others for now. Any tips?

 

Edit2:

I've made the decision and (as you can read further bellow on post #7) here was the winning host.

• Hoster: DreamHost
• Service: VPS Hosting
• Storage: 30GB SSD 
• RAM: 1GB RAM
• Extras: 1 Dedicated IP Address / Unlimited domains / Was offered 1 free domain registration
• Montly cost: $12

So far I'm giving the company a 5/5 in everything except FTP speed (4/5 there). You can read (again on post #7) the reasoning, if you're also searching for your own hosting service.

 

Cheers!

[tips4design]

Hmm, I think you would better end up using different servers for different stuff. You could buy a basic shared hosting for about 5$/month where you can host all your files and projects and another server for Node.js instances.

[adngdb]

• Space (since I will make it my personal server, not only for games, and may include the hosting of personal stuff - 30gb is more than enough for me)

I would recommend not mixing your user-facing and personal servers. If one of your games has a security issue for example, you run the risk of having your personal data being stolen. Or if for some reason there's a bug in whatever software you run to handle your personal data, you risk having your games going down. It's always better to keep a good separation of concerns. Having one server for several games is fine imho, but you should definitely keep your personal data somewhere else.

 

As far as your initial question goes, if you need to run some server-side JS, you can either go with a dedicated service like nodejitsu or with any hosting solution that gives your SSH access (dedicated server or VPS, it depends on your needs). Regarding memory, space and computing power, it all depends on your game and the number of players you have. You might not need much at first, so I'd go with something not too big and expensive, and keep in mind that scaling up might need to happen at some point (so have a way to either upgrade your hosting or migrate everything smoothly).

[sombriks]

if you want node and want to start with minimum or zero fee, these are your boys:

 

1. https://console.ng.bluemix.net/ (it's IBM baby)
2. https://www.openshift.com/ (the Red Hat boys)
3. https://www.heroku.com/home (from salesforce)

The peopele say that strongloop does the job too, but i had neither money or time.

 

All you will have to learn is how to use git, how to use the command line tool each one has and do some click thing in some webconsole.

 

Good Luck.

[qdrj]

Digital Ocean is very popular and cheap choice at the moment.

- NodeJs supported

- support is great

- starting from 5$ month

- cloud

- ftp/ssh available

 

This is my refferal link - https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=3465e393467f

 

If you will use it you will get 10$ credit

[sep181]

Hi,

 

I usually use Digital Ocean services, they have prebuilt ISO's with the most common development stacks (included some with Node.js). The best thing is that you have many options to configure the server based on your needs but without been too complex. I think that the user interface is more simple than other cloud or hosting providers (like AWS, Azure or Google cloud computing). The price is about 10$ for a server with 1 core, 1 GB of RAM and 10 GB of space (in an SSD drive).

 

If you're confortable configuring your own server and you want full control, you should choose a cloud provider or VPS, and if your project runs on top of Node.js I think you need a them, because not so many hosting providers allow you to run Node.js (they're usually focused on PHP, Python or Ruby), but you can find one.

 

Digital Ocean isn't a domain registrator so you must to choose another company to register your domains and them point the DNS to the IP that Digital Ocean sends to you. This is something you must to consider, because then, you have two companies to pay. In my personal opinion, Digital Ocean is one of the best options you can choose, even if you must to choose another company for the domains, you will get a server running an SSD drive, easy to run and running in the datacenter you choose (this is important if you have consumers worlwide).

[tedj]

Thanks for all the answers!

 

I ended up going with dreamhost only because I have other dev friends with it and they were very satisfied. The process was super smooth and they allow me to, inside the same account yet using different servers, extend my service to rent more stuff (another shared host if I'd want to put node up for a game, to separate from my personal stuff, for example). Maybe the others allow this too as it makes sense.

 

I did choose VPS in the end, especially because the VPS service they provided me allows me to, at any given time, increase the RAM and available memory (separately) by just slide a scroll bar, which is great if I need improved performance for some time. For anyone curious, these were the final specs:

 

Service: VPS Hosting

Storage: 30GB SSD 

RAM: 1GB RAM

Extras: 1 Dedicated IP Address / Unlimited domains / Was offered 1 free domain registration

Montly cost: $12

 

Also, it was my first time doing this so I went a little by faith, got into a live chat 4 times with their costumer support and I'll be damn if I wasn't satisfied. They were helpful, knew exactly what they were doing, helped me throughout more than a total of 2 hours of installations, answered many questions, and this was all at 5AM L.A. time. The setup took a little while until it was finished, around 10-15 mins until the VPS was up and running with webmail services, databases and so on. The DNS propagation took awhile but hey, that's normal. I do think their FTP connection is a tad little bit slow every time you open a new folder on any FTP program, but nothing I can't easily live with.

 

After purchasing it, the next day they had a problem with my server and I was moved to another one, and the downtime was, literally none. I was working on it and received an email explaining they had that problem and just finished moving my server, and I was like "wat u talkin bout?". So far, 5/5 service. Kinda sounds I'm advertising them haha, but well, just letting my opinion here so that future devs may form their own decision!

Thanks all for the answers! 

[gsgames]

@qdrj

 

I'm assuming your RoboWhale.com site is the one your hosting on DigitalOcean.

 

Which pricing plan are you using.

 

Or more to the point, do you think the $5 plan would be sufficient for 250 daily UV's?

[qdrj]

@qdrj

 

I'm assuming your RoboWhale.com site is the one your hosting on DigitalOcean.

 

Which pricing plan are you using.

 

Or more to the point, do you think the $5 plan would be sufficient for 250 daily UV's?

Yes, robowhale.com is hosted on DO (5$/month plan)

 

I have 200-300 pageviews a day. Current plan handling this amount very easily. Max CPU usage 7%.

 

And if this plan won't be sufficient I can scale. It is super easy to do with dashboard.

[Rudrabhoj Bhati]

I have exprience with Digital Ocean and Choopa's Vultr, both of them support FreeBSD which I run. Currently using digital ocean for Agnis Website and never had been happier. Vultr wasn't bad either, but I trust DO more. Before that I used many other services, most of them were more excpensive and offered nothing better than would DO can at much lower price.

[gsgames]

Thanks qdrj and harsh Bhati,

 

I've been checking out the tutorials on DO and it seems you need to know a lot about the Linux command shell if you want a secure site.

 

I think I'm going to install Ubuntu server on my desktop and start learning there.

[seeker]

This might be oldschool, but one can use dropbox and modify it to serve static files. However, if you're looking for server side logic, i recommend heroku

[Clowerweb]

I can add a +1 for DigitalOcean. Been using them for about 3 years now for my personal freelancing site, for my web dev customers' sites, and for hosting my little game dev hobby projects. It's been a great experience. You do have to know a little bit about Linux and SSH, but there are ample tutorials online. I started with the $5/mo plan and scaled it up twice now, and am currently on the $20/mo plan. Super simple to do, 2 clicks and done. I even got a free SSL certificate through StartSSL (tutorial). Never had any troubles with speed, downtime, or resource overages. It's always up, always fast, and no surprises with billing.

[huymai]

I am also running to host the website with Godady Game Hay and tuyet.Do see very well may be a good idea whether

[ekeimaja]

I will host my games on my own server computer.

[webcaetano]

like @qdrj also recomend https://www.digitalocean.com +1

Simple , fast to create host and cheap. Your server up and running in seconds.

 

Same as digitalocean but more complex and more features.

https://aws.amazon.com/

 

@ivan.popelyshev recomended me this some days ago. Looks very nice. They have hosts spreads all over the globe

https://www.vultr.com/

 

https://www.heroku.com +1

 

Namecheap have a host service(shared, vps, dedicated)  cheap and very stable.
https://www.namecheap.com/

[mattstyles]

I can add another +1 for Digital Ocean, simple, cheap but effective. They used to have issues with IP as they did some dodgy loophole roundabout thing, havent seemed to notice that more recently though. Your server wont be treated particularly well (they take the cattle approach) but for small to medium projects, particularly ones that may be short-lived or never quite make it, they are perfect, largely due to price and simplicity.

 

Vultr I've heard good things about, good pricing again.

 

Linode also excellent, slightly more expensive but your server will be treated much better.

 

Heroku I've never been a massive fan of, too expensive for what you get, but they are a super company with great support.

 

Of course, if you really want to play with the big boys, you have to go Amazon, Rackspace or other big providers. There is a reason they are more expensive than the others, and it isnt simply lining pockets.

 

 

Glad you found a good one, to be honest, its largely much of a muchness, I'm not surprised you went with the one you received good customer support from, and you'll probably happily stay there!

 

Also, I think 1GB is a minimum with Node these days. It's hungrier than it used to be and by the time you've added pm2 or forever or some other daemon you'll probably start eating away at big chunks of 512mb before connections start hitting you.