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I don't need a VPS anymore

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Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#61

Post by harry8 »

ixwt wrote: post #58
selectronics wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For one thing, they often make it against the ToS to host 'a server' (generally). Beyond this, it can also be impossible due to lack of a static IP or control over the router (5G internet service with CGNAT). A VPS with WireGuard and remote port forwarding allows access for things like SSH.

Many DNS providers allow you to curl a particular URL to set the IP address for your domain. Set your server to curl it periodically, and it solves the lack of a static IP.

No good if your isp provided IP is behind an ISP nat. Eg via 3/4/5g Dongle. VPS can get you past that in a few ways.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#62

Post by jaza »

cutler wrote: post #51
jaza wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. A big part of why I'm saying "I don't need a VPS anymore", is because I'm also saying "I don't need dynamic sites anymore". I've been building dynamic sites for two decades (once upon a time "original LAMP stack" PHP + MySQL, more recently Python + PostgreSQL). I honestly never imagined that static sites could one day compete with that. But times have changed, and the JAMstack of 2022 has all the functio…

I think you're overplaying the "static" card. If you're using the JAMstack the static bit is only half of the equation. Need a contact form? Now you need a form-processing service and it's no longer static. If you're replacing old PHP + MySQL sites you'll need a lot more than a static site generator. "Mostly static" might be more accurate but then how long does that last? Clients typically want WordPress plus a ton o…

It's up to you when you think a traditional server back-end is still warranted, there are certainly still cases where it makes sense. But if all you need is a contact form, then I'd argue that it doesn't make sense! Yes, I agree, Netlify Forms is a rip-off, if you need more than the free limit of 100 submissions per month (which personally I don't, but of course many people do). But there are many other options for simple form handling, I'd recommend looking into them. And the JAMstack can compete quite well with WordPress and co these days, check out https://myclientwants.com/

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#63

Post by simonw »

GitHub Actions has almost completely replaced my need for a VPS - I am getting SO much done with scheduled actions now.

I also have a lot of projects which live in a GitHub repository but are then deployed by GitHub Actions to Cloud Run or Vercel.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#64

Post by ldoughty »

trey-jones wrote: post #57

I might need some perspective. Every time I read one of these I'm just shaking my head, and yes the arguments are Less Power, Less Control, but also SysAdmin is me. That is my identity, and the part of the job that I like the most. I solve problems with configuration before code. So I hate to think that I'm becoming obsolete, of course. I also don't think that I am, because I do think that my way has some clear and d…

I was a junior system administrator... And became an early cloud adopter...

I think your viewing is valid, but yes, biased by your knowledge.

Since you already know system administration, it's not hard for you to manage another system... That's your day job, what's a personal one?

But for people who prefer code, handing that off is a blessing.

I runs small light sail vps.. it took me only a few hours to write up scripts to manage containers.. and a few more hours to automate backups to a secure location in another AWS account... But for today years, what I just described is impossible, or a 1-2 week task.. not an afternoon...

And this is our bias... For us, it's easier than learning lambda, or api gateway... But for them, those are easier than learning system administration.

I also disagree with the idea we are becoming obsolete... I work in a serverless DevOps environment for 4+ years and still explain basic networking concepts regularly... Stuff that don't teach much of in computer science... Like failover DNS ... While managing DNS was moved to the cloud, many still don't understand the technical reasonings of things.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#65

Post by SPBS »

jaza wrote: post #28
cutler wrote: post #21

Fine if you can make do with static sites but that's hardly a common use case. Most of us who use a VPS are hosting Nginx with a reverse proxy to Rails, Django, Express or Laravel + PostgreSQL or MySQL where the memory costs are a fraction of the equivalent cloud offering. I tried Github pages once, rather than Netlify, and pulled my hair out trying to get HTTPS working with a personal domain. Last I checked it's sti…

Author here. A big part of why I'm saying "I don't need a VPS anymore", is because I'm also saying "I don't need dynamic sites anymore". I've been building dynamic sites for two decades (once upon a time "original LAMP stack" PHP + MySQL, more recently Python + PostgreSQL). I honestly never imagined that static sites could one day compete with that. But times have changed, and the JAMstack of 2022 has all the functio…

> A big part of why I'm saying "I don't need a VPS anymore", is because I'm also saying "I don't need dynamic sites anymore". I've been building dynamic sites for two decades (once upon a time "original LAMP stack" PHP + MySQL, more recently Python + PostgreSQL). I honestly never imagined that static sites could one day compete with that. But times have changed, and the JAMstack of 2022 has all the functionality you need.

This IMO should have been the main point of the article, not VPSes. No one can argue that a maintaining a live website is better if a few HTML pages will do.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#67

Post by pcr910303 »

There was a hype on serverless, so a lot of people here on HN is a bit allergic on them and tell ‘an EC2 instance is all you need’. And it’s not wrong — I’ve seen seriously over-engineered serverless systems with so much AWS-specific code. But a few years passed now a lot more services now provide (almost) lockin-free APIs that are pretty useful for simple.

IMO blindly recommending ‘just self host’, a sentiment that I see a lot in HN isn’t a good answer.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#68

Post by cutler »

jaza wrote: post #62
cutler wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overplaying the "static" card. If you're using the JAMstack the static bit is only half of the equation. Need a contact form? Now you need a form-processing service and it's no longer static. If you're replacing old PHP + MySQL sites you'll need a lot more than a static site generator. "Mostly static" might be more accurate but then how long does that last? Clients typically want WordPress plus a ton o…

It's up to you when you think a traditional server back-end is still warranted, there are certainly still cases where it makes sense. But if all you need is a contact form, then I'd argue that it doesn't make sense! Yes, I agree, Netlify Forms is a rip-off, if you need more than the free limit of 100 submissions per month (which personally I don't, but of course many people do). But there are many other options for s…

The thing is I only picked on forms off the top of my head. There's a ton of functionality in your average client site which I can't imagine JAMstack catering for without it costing a lot more than hosting it on a VPS. JAMstack seems to cater for the painting by numbers model of web development but that's only a small fraction of what clients need. The JAMstack equivalent of a typical WordPress site, I imagine, would have to pull-in a dozen external services costing a lot more than the VPS alternative. Netlify make a big deal about the low-cost scalability of the CDN factor in JAMstack but it's only low-cost when you don't use external services. It's quite the opposite, I've heard, once you've outgrown static and need a third party service for every new feature.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#69

Post by vmception »

trey-jones wrote: post #57

I might need some perspective. Every time I read one of these I'm just shaking my head, and yes the arguments are Less Power, Less Control, but also SysAdmin is me. That is my identity, and the part of the job that I like the most. I solve problems with configuration before code. So I hate to think that I'm becoming obsolete, of course. I also don't think that I am, because I do think that my way has some clear and d…

> I also think that "my site is free as in beer and also lightning fast" generally transposes to "my site doesn't have any traffic"

its more about being able to handle spurts of traffic and sustained traffic. these services are good enough to power whole communities and mobile apps. and that means it covers most use cases, as well as the placeholder websites that may launch a product once.

and by most use cases, we're talking about just the 99th percentile of high load intertwined ratsnest products not being able to handle it, but even then that's only because of an insanely high traffic load that is loading unique queries that are impossible to cache and this breaks view rendering - aka the bottleneck is still elsewhere.

with things that render quickly and have that view cached on the nearest CDNs, and that have giant memcaches of the queries that will be used, you really aren't needed!

fortunately there are many web services that are not designed that way, cannot be designed that way, but more so can't/won't be redesigned that way.

Re: I don't need a VPS anymore

#70

Post by MatthiasPortzel »

cutler wrote: post #21

Fine if you can make do with static sites but that's hardly a common use case. Most of us who use a VPS are hosting Nginx with a reverse proxy to Rails, Django, Express or Laravel + PostgreSQL or MySQL where the memory costs are a fraction of the equivalent cloud offering. I tried Github pages once, rather than Netlify, and pulled my hair out trying to get HTTPS working with a personal domain. Last I checked it's sti…

> I tried Github pages once…and pulled my hair out trying to get HTTPS working with a personal domain.

Last I checked HTTPs was available by default even on custom domains. I did have to remove and re-add my custom domain on a Github pages site that was created before this was the case. But after doing that, it was 0-config.

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