Heroku is very, very expensive. We switched an early Discourse setup from Heroku to Digital Ocean (using our Docker setup, which is another reason why it exists) and it saved them probably $100 per month. Everything but the largest communities fit fine on a $20/month, 2 CPU, 2GB ram DO droplet.
Running costs for running a web app
21–30 of 225 posts
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#22Cloud services can work out super expensive for a startup. To get going often all you need is one server that runs both the database and web server, which you can rent cheaply from any number of hosting companies out there. Sure you have to manage it yourself and it won't scale right off the bat, but sometimes that's fine. This is how we ran Scirra for a long time. Eventually you need to scale up, but that's a nice p…
If people depend on you for anything, you should probably have the ability to survive that one server going down. Fortunately database warm standbys are WAY easier than true multi-master.
Yeah, that's true. We were traditional one-off software license sales via our website, so a brief outage would not be the end of the world. There are definitely cases where it would be irresponsible to only have one server, but I think there are still a lot of startups that could get by with it, and it would save them a lot on the early running costs, which could really make a difference.
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#23This seems ok given that the startup has generated approximately $60,000 in stripe revenue. I would try to reduce costs in those Heroku workers... $175/month seems steep.
Hi! I run Cushion. Moving off Heroku is definitely high on my to-do list. So far, since I'm a solo dev, I've taken the mindset of paying for convenience services that would allow me to spend more time working on the app. Now, I'm getting into the phase where I can start reducing these costs and transition to a system that doesn’t induce fear when I need to add another server. Right now, I have two web workers and two…
May I humbly suggest ikura.co for your web-workers? Less $516.75.
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#24Cloud services can work out super expensive for a startup. To get going often all you need is one server that runs both the database and web server, which you can rent cheaply from any number of hosting companies out there. Sure you have to manage it yourself and it won't scale right off the bat, but sometimes that's fine. This is how we ran Scirra for a long time. Eventually you need to scale up, but that's a nice p…
Dividing your architecture into separate components is not only needed for operating at scale (the "nice" problem to have), but for having high availability (or even decent performance) at all. Depending on one's business, HA/performance may not matter that much, but personally my startup is having a 'proper' design from day 1 - downtime is not acceptable for my business model.
Mind me asking what you're doing?
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#25How do you only pay $80 for Slack a year? Their base price is $6.67 / user / month on an annual plan, so $80 gets you 1 user on Slack. Huh?
I'm a solo dev. :) I use Slack as a notification center for all of my services.
I see, that's awesome! Great job juggling everything to make this work!
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#26What are the strikethroughs for? My assumption is thing you aren't paying for anymore, but wanted to double check since not all have replacements.
The strikethroughs are for services I once used, but have since cancelled because I either moved to another service or no longer needed that service anymore. Early on, I paid for Code Climate, but realized it was an expensive non-necessity at the time. For services like Mailchimp, I moved my newsletter to Intercom once the spiked cost of Mailchimp didn't make sense to keep.
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#27For all of you dreamers with side projects (like me): red hat open shift has a free tier with free ssl
Thanks for the information, I find outrageous to have to pay $20 per month just for the SSL endpoint on Heroku.
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#28This is an excellent breakdown, thanks. As others have pointed out you can make it cheaper here or there but I find it awesome that you can run your business without any dedicated IT resources a sysadmin/network/ops kind of person. Adding one employee might switch it from a nice side income to losing money.
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#29Heroku is without a doubt one of the more expensive options out there. SSL being billed per month? Yikes. SSL really should be standard.
I migrated from Heroku to OpsWorks a year ago and couldn't be happier.
Re: Running costs for running a web app
#30I can slash about 4000 of those dollars down to 600 by renting hardware to run those services on. Makes you responsible for your setup but if you are bootstrapping, you can find better first year uses for 3400 dollars I'm sure.
At the time, I was eager to build the app and focus on its features and getting it online. I don't know much about renting hardware, setting up a system, and scaling, so I was gladly willing to pay to make that easier on myself. The $3400 lost actually bought me a lot more of my own time, which I consider more valuable in the long run. I'd be interested in reading a blog post about how you'd slash the cost, if you ever end up writing one.