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Running costs for running a web app

cushionapp.com

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Re: Running costs for running a web app

#51

Post by code777777 »

vemv wrote: post #11
AshleysBrain wrote: post #9

Cloud 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.

I'm not disagreeing that in some cases it's true. But as someone who provides infrastructure for a great many businesses including startups, most everyone changes their tune when their server goes down.

Re: Running costs for running a web app

#52

Post by arikrak »

jtchang wrote: post #4

Heroku is without a doubt one of the more expensive options out there. SSL being billed per month? Yikes. SSL really should be standard.

You can get free SSL from CloudFlare and connect it with the free SSL option at https://yourApp.herokuapp.com. (That's what I use at https://www.learneroo.com)

Re: Running costs for running a web app

#53

Post by nickpsecurity »

jeffmould wrote: post #32

I always find breakdowns like this interesting. Just to get a feel for what others are using, their reasoning, and to generalize what others are spending monthly/annually. With more breakdowns like this from more companies, I think it provides a great understanding of costs. It also can give people a good baseline for understanding what costs are at certain levels of users and with certain functionality. While I unde…

I think you're overstating it on mentioning alternatives. There's certainly factors that go into picking a particular provider that may justify the price or negate an alternative mentioned. So, I'm also against anyone mentioning them as a critique without context.

However, the flip side is that many services have alternatives that do about what they do. They might do so with a lower price or more capabilities. People mentioning those in comments of articles like this facilitates the discovery of those products for people not aware of them.

An example for me was arguing that much of what "cloud" stuff does can be done with dedicated hosting if it was setup correctly. That we just need a combo of the two to satisfy certain markets focused on security and dependability where sharing hardware isn't permitted but they want flexibility & low costs. Thanks to a commenter, I found out I had re-invented the concept of "bare metal hosting" and SoftLayer provided exactly what I was thinking about. I wouldn't have discovered that if everyone and I were just giving props to the OP or further elaborating their own use case.

So, I think exploring the reasons behind the choices of company in question and bringing up alternatives are beneficial. One facilitates understanding. One discovery.

Re: Running costs for running a web app

#54

Post by nickpsecurity »

yoyo_io wrote: post #41
tylermauthe wrote: post #33

As some have said, this seems expensive. However, I would point out that the costs of using Heroku should be outweighed by the convenience and ability to focus on features. You are getting what you pay for here, the velocity you gain from not worrying about your infrastructure. I do think that when you are first launching a startup, you should probably do everything as cheaply as possible, which probably means using…

Cost of getting one dedicated devops engineer would surpass Heroku budget by 10X. If devops engineer is far fetched as per scale of the company than count in number of hours put in by developers for initial up, upgrade, new emlpoyee on boarding tada tada would easily bet it too. However I wish they would have disclosed traffic handled by Heroku servers as well.

Maybe if you hire them from Silicon Valley. There's plenty of skilled people in areas with low cost of living that can handle the job without 10x the pay of whoever. There should be at least one such person on the team anyway if the business is a web application. Plus, aren't there alternatives to services like Heroku these days that come as appliances or VM's with simple deployment? I'm seriously asking because I don't work on that stuff but swore such products pop up all the time.

Re: Running costs for running a web app

#58

Post by nacs »

From the expense report, it says you have a wildcard SSL (and it seems to be in use in the subdomain for the signup page for example) yet your main root site seems to be unavailable via SSL?

Is there any reason for this or just an oversight?

Re: Running costs for running a web app

#60

Post by askedrelic »

misiti3780 wrote: post #57

This is the first time I have ever heard of Papertrail. I really hate loggly and am looking for a better option - can anyone shed any light on if this is a good option ? Which log aggregation services is everyone using ?

Papertrail is pretty great. I've used them for years without a hiccup.
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