Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#1

Post by ilmak1704 » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:19 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#2

Post by dannyboland » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:36 PM UTC

I use Hetzner - reasonable prices, EU based and one of the best benefits of AI is that running a pet server is no longer a real burden.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#3

Post by doublerabbit » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:44 PM UTC

Colocation.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#4

Post by tempolifeapp » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#5

Post by ilmak1704 » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 8:59 PM UTC

I'm building thebay.cloud, so I'm biased - asking cause I want to hear what people actually use

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#6

Post by TheJCDenton » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

Cloudflare. Free tier, and prices bound to wall time, which is nice for side projects.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#7

Post by frou_dh » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

Back in the day I used an old laptop sitting in my house running with its lid closed and free dynamic-DNS :)

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#8

Post by thinkafter » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 9:56 PM UTC

Used Heroku until they got rid of free

Used Vercel until they banned img tags

Used AWS until they suspended my account (they always do this, new account -> week later suspended, can’t pay them, they don’t want me)

Used GCP until I got the first bill

Every option was a headache, so now I just self host. Forward router ports, install an SSL, npm start

Problem solved. For free

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#9

Post by ilmak1704 » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

thinkafter wrote: post #8

Used Heroku until they got rid of free Used Vercel until they banned img tags Used AWS until they suspended my account (they always do this, new account -> week later suspended, can’t pay them, they don’t want me) Used GCP until I got the first bill Every option was a headache, so now I just self host. Forward router ports, install an SSL, npm start Problem solved. For free

Is self-hosting permanent now, or would anything pull you back?

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to host side projects?

#10

Post by thinkafter » Sun, Aug 30, 2026, 11:00 PM UTC

ilmak1704 wrote: post #9

thinkafter wrote: post #8

Used Heroku until they got rid of free Used Vercel until they banned img tags Used AWS until they suspended my account (they always do this, new account -> week later suspended, can’t pay them, they don’t want me) Used GCP until I got the first bill Every option was a headache, so now I just self host. Forward router ports, install an SSL, npm start Problem solved. For free

Is self-hosting permanent now, or would anything pull you back?

Need to scale and have deployments in different locations, more guaranteed uptime, more resources that I have at home.

Would be a good problem to have!

For hobbies and even small businesses a home server on residential ISP is a lot of fun