I think the most important thing is getting something up and running quickly because you don't know where the design of the system will lead and you don't need the distraction of setting up a server. Don't waste more than a week fretting over this issue. Even a week is too much! During development you can still consider this issue so it's not an either-or thing. You're still developing in rails and can easily move your system to a standalone server. You're just delaying the cost of hiring a system admin or training one while you spend your valuable time in creating a working system which is very valuable in terms of figuring out the design of it.
Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#22Heroku is great. But, if you use something a bit outside ruby/add-ons (which is a lot, including NoSql databases, Apigee, and lots of other great services), you will need to move.
Actually, Heroku supports all the popular NoSQL databases out of the box via their addon system.
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#23Heroku's definitely easier to setup and use - it's usually the right choice when you're first starting out and/or you don't have any advanced needs.
I don't use it much anymore - I stick to Moonshine and the Rackspace Cloud. The setup and management of a private slice is super easy and, IMHO, it's worth the small amount of extra work to setup.
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#24Trust me, Heroku is not costly compared to setting up a server: $ git push master heroku is a lot cheaper then: Setup a machine. Then setup mysql, nginx, REE 1.8.6, or did you go with MRI 1.9.1? You're not gonna launch on Rails3 right? Because then you can't do 1.9.1, you have to go to 1.9.2. And you know how to setup nginx to pipe requests through to a Rails app. Are you going with Passenger or Unicorn? Oh make sure…
I could write a similarly disingenuous how-to on using linux and vi to write c vs writing visual basic on my HP desktop from costco.
Is there a learning curve to mastering these things? Of course. But there is a huge reward in learning them. Otherwise, woe be unto you the first time you want to do something heroku does not allow (or gets acquired, or folds up, etc etc etc).
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#25Heroku is great for site that might work out and might not. The initial cost is zero, but you can scale out as needed. Hopefully youve structured your business properly so that herokus cost is a small percentage of revenue.
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Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#26I've used both Engine Yard Cloud and Heroku. They're both great and have their pros and cons. Both are also powered by Amazon EC2.
The only major downside with Heroku is if there is any downtime within their infrastructure, your app will also go down. This has happened a couple of times in the last 3-4 months, and it took a lot of big sites down.
Engine Yard Cloud setups are self-contained and can be locked down to whatever setup, cloud version you're happy with. If they update their cloud setup, you don't have to update your instance anymore.
It also seems like you can get more "bang for your buck" with EY once you start needing more computing/db power
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#27Definitely go with Heroku for two reasons: time savings (no sysadmin is huge!) and flexibility (you can always migrate later, which is easy since almost all of their stack is open-source).
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#28I recommend heroku for starting out and and getting your apps some traction or whatever, then if/when you make more money hire a sys admin and migrate to something else if you want.
I really love heroku though, especially after setting up my own servers on media temple for rails apps (which sucks using passenger).
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#29Heroku is probably really great as long as you are small. Once you get serious you can host much cheaper on your own machines, but there will be additional (hidden) costs to factor in because you'll be spending more time on doing all the stuff that Heroku does for you. That's their added value, super easy deployment and keeping your stuff up and running. Cost wise it is fine as long as you're small enough to not notice you bill as a 'significant expense'. When that happens you should look in to running your own server, maybe first a virtual one, then move on to a dedicated server. That should allow you to scale to quite impressive size without breaking the bank.
Re: Ask HN: Heroku or Not?
#30Come ask James at Startup Bootcamp :-)