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Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

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Re: Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

#71

Post by mark_l_watson »

First, I'll mention what I no longer do: rent servers by the month from places like 1and1 or Rackspace. You probably get good value, but at an admin cost.

What I do use:

1. VPS from a quality hosting company. I use RimuHosting and people I know also like Linode. I like the extra level of managed server support for backup, maintaining RAID devices, etc.

2. AWS - love AWS. Some people have problems with performance of SimpleDB and SQS but these services handle queries in parallel so, for example, for a web app that needs to access a lot of data to render a page, queries can be done all at once. (Same comment on AppEngine's datastore)

3. AppEngine - great if your application is a good fit for the platform. Watch out for long loading request times: I use Java with Objectify, and I can keep loading request times down to about 1 second. (Non-loading requests are obviously a lot faster).

4. Heroku - for Rails apps. Love it.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

#73

Post by lzw »

App Engine, for everything.

I've been using Unix for 3 decades and at this point I see any time spent administering or setting up servers as time wasted when I could be adding value to the product. App engine gives me all the administration and half of the scalability solution I need, so I spend my time adding value.

I am amazed that so many of you have root. I'm guessing it comes because you value the control, and don't mind spending time on system administration?

Re: Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

#74

Post by visava »

I am currently using 2 Linode 512 MB servers for a simple free application. One of my Linode got hacked recently. But for another paid app I am exploring other options like PEER1 for managed Security such as IDS and Managed Firewall / Load balancer. It would cost significantly more than ($600 - $1200) Still not sure whether I should be managing my own security using tools such as OSSEC/Snort or outsource it.

What are the solutions everybody is using for Load Balancing and Security.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

#75

Post by jasonkester »

andrewvc wrote: post #68
jasonkester wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In two years of self-hosting, we had a few minor downtime instances, but nothing to do with the DSL: http://expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/08/redundant-is-never... You run the same risks hosting at home as you do in a datacenter. Things can go down and it's your job to put them back up. There's no greater chance of the ISP cutting off a Business DSL line that happens to point to a residence than to a business downto…

Depends on where you live, but your house doesn't have redundant connections and service contracts to fix them ASAP. Your home net connection may be reliable, now, but if something bad happens it could be down for days, not hours.

When you're starting out, your service can, quite frankly, be down for an entire day and it won't kill you. Once you've got enough traction that downtime could be a money-losing issue, you can step up.

But let's be realistic. Plenty of real businesses host their public site from their own office. At least, several of the startups I've worked for have their own server closet. Many of them don't have redundant internet connection nor redundant power.

It's OK to be a little bit flaky. Look at the poster-child for flakiness (some microblogging service that seems to be popular among, well, everybody), and you'll notice it's still pretty successful even with it's weekly tech-blog-worth downtime. Your average little startup probably doesn't need five nines from the word go. What it does need, though, is a backend setup that only costs $50/month. Hosting from your home-office will give you that.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

#76

Post by sriramk »

svnv wrote: post #57
binarymax wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dare I say it, but if you need to run Microsoft in the cloud then Azure is probably a good bet these days. Also, if you don't already have MSDN and want to run a Microsoft stack you can get a BizSpark license and that comes with some good freebies.

We use azure for our webapp. Works great so far, although the azure-website for managing server deployments is not very good. Also, you can use powershell and the azure tools for VS2010 instead of the azure-website.

I'd love to hear more about what you don't like about the site (email address on my profile page).

Btw, I ran the feature team that built the APIs that powershell and Visual Studio use. So if you don't like those, that's probably my fault. :)

Re: Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp?

#78

Post by trin_ »

avar wrote: post #53
sl_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competition in this market is quite strong in germany, there are 5 major companys offering basically the identical dedicated server service. The servers are not virtualized, therefor you usually have to commit to longer running contracts or higher setup fees.

Would you mind enumerating what 5 companies those are?

i dont know which 5 he means but i guess:

http://www.hetzner.de/ http://www.server4you.de/ http://www.strato.de/ http://www.hosteurope.de/ http://1und1.de/

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