Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#1

Post by the_wannabe » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:46 AM UTC

I'm finally starting to wrap up the MVP of my web app which is my side project. Now I'm starting to look at how I'm going to host it, and I'm getting overwhelmed with the number of options. My background is in desktop\embedded code, so I've not really had to deal with this much before. My app is written in Rust on the Rocket framework and uses PostgreSQL and PostGIS.

I was originally looking at Digital Ocean, however I'm thinking that managing that might be too much work for me, and it will be too easy to make a stupid security mistake. I'm currently looking at https://www.clever-cloud.com/en/rust-hosting which seems safe and easy. Are there better options?

Should I not try and ignore this stuff and spend the time like learning something like Docker instead?

Any other tips? Anything I'm overlooking?

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#2

Post by verdverm » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 3:53 AM UTC

Don't worry about all that security / docker with a MVP, you can deal with that once you know your project is solving a problem and you need to scale.

My personal recommendation is a small VM in Google Cloud for the app and another small managed postgres server (backups automated). GCloud is easier to get started with and they automatically migrate your app VM if there are hardware problems. This would run you less than $50 (~30 ballpark) per month. The other consideration is https (mainly for not appearing dangerous in the browser).

(Boycotting AWS)

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#3

Post by jtchang » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:00 AM UTC

What kind of budget are you on?

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#4

Post by the_wannabe » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:03 AM UTC

jtchang wrote: post #3

What kind of budget are you on?

Minimal. I don't expect this to make a raft of money any time soon, so I'm looking for a good balance between hands off and cheap. I'm hoping $50/month will be towards the upper end of cost, but I could go higher if needed.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#5

Post by rajangdavis » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:16 AM UTC

Heroku isn't a bad option.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#6

Post by jamestimmins » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:29 AM UTC

rajangdavis wrote: post #5

Heroku isn't a bad option.

I second Heroku. Definitely the most simple setup option.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#7

Post by czbond » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:30 AM UTC

jamestimmins wrote: post #6

rajangdavis wrote: post #5

Heroku isn't a bad option.

I second Heroku. Definitely the most simple setup option.

I third Heroku.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#8

Post by myrloc » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:31 AM UTC

DigitalOcean offers the basics with a straightforward API and UI for management at an affordable price. It won't have the offerings of AWS or GCloud, but if you ever need to move to a larger provider, you're guaranteed to have what you're using at DO. I'd go with DO until you have a reason to switch.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#9

Post by miketery » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:31 AM UTC

verdverm wrote: post #2

Don't worry about all that security / docker with a MVP, you can deal with that once you know your project is solving a problem and you need to scale. My personal recommendation is a small VM in Google Cloud for the app and another small managed postgres server (backups automated). GCloud is easier to get started with and they automatically migrate your app VM if there are hardware problems. This would run you less t…

Why the boycott? (serious question)

Re: Ask HN: Advice for Hosting and Deploying My Side Project

#10

Post by robax » Thu, Feb 21, 2019, 4:32 AM UTC

verdverm wrote: post #2

Don't worry about all that security / docker with a MVP, you can deal with that once you know your project is solving a problem and you need to scale. My personal recommendation is a small VM in Google Cloud for the app and another small managed postgres server (backups automated). GCloud is easier to get started with and they automatically migrate your app VM if there are hardware problems. This would run you less t…

This comment hits the nail on the head for me.

Pick a cloud provider. Spin up an instance that will be your server. Spin up an instance that will be your DB. Make your DB only listen to your server instance. Make your server instance only listen on port 80/443.

As long as your app isn't vulnerable to SQL injection type stuff, that's probably enough security for an MVP, and this kind of set up puts you on the right track for scalability.

Source: am DevOps.