Hosting provider. Is it important at all?
Hey all,
Question - if I would be working on (hypothetically) yet another Firebase clone, where would you host it? Is it important to use AWS as most of the internet depends on it or any other RELIABLE hosting provider that offers hosting in multiple locations is also ok.
Wondering what's your take on this?
My question wouldn't be which hosting provider, but why a Firebase clone? That sounds like a really tough marketing to get into as an IH. Curious whats your motivation.
I am NOT working on Firebase clone - this was just hypothetical question. I am working on other developer tool, but not as close to Firebase, however it can be still difficult from marketing perspective.
Why? I am developer, I am trying to build a tool for myself. I've tried to sort someone else problem and it never worked out. I was loosing interest, I never pushed product to market when I spent a lot of time on it.
But the example is important, a Firebase-like service is all about availability and scaling, it also probably requires vast amounts of resources, so you can't go the dedicated route unless you invest a lot in infrastructure.
If the service is something a lot simpler, you can use different hosting methods (VPS, Dedicated, cloud functions, etc.), but it depends a lot on your performance and privacy, needs, target costs, availability, etc.
Well, yes and no. Check Supabase - they started on DigitalOcean, then migrated and are running on AWS EC2
t3as. It all depends on the spec .But DigitalOcean has many offerings, including managed databases, cloud storage and an API to create droplets. As I said, it all depends on your needs and expected scaling needs. Most new apps don't really need scaling, as they don't have users/traffic yet.
Sure, I'm thinking to go for a provider that will allow automation of the processes. Currently Linode is on the top of my list.
Thanks for your comment.
Gotcha, thanks for clarifying. As far as hosting I'm a big fan of Digital Ocean. It must easy to manage as an IH. They offer great tools but keep it simple!
Extremely important. However, I'd take a look at bare metal cloud providers as well. PhoenixNAP is a great example with their bare metal cloud. You'll save a ton of money as you start to build your project without sacrificing reliability.
Also, find someone with a startup program! You can land some great credits even on the big clouds to help get things rolling :)
Thanks for your comment.
Unfortunately my business is running too long to qualify for startup program for most providers and I don't want to start new entity for this new idea. It will cost me more in accountant fees etc, so I will just pay the full price.
Bare metal is cool, and most cost effective way to host app, but for now, for my MVP, I prefer flexibility of cloud servers.
Ah gotcha! Another option to checkout is render.com they’re a great team with an awesome product :)
Fly.io, Railway and Render are all super cool, but they have a limitation that is a killer for this project - persistent storage can be connected only to 1 instance at the time. For this particular project I know I need an "actual" server.
We tried lenode, Google and Digital Ocean for http://pricehistory.app. Finally Settled for Lenode. is there any better option?
I think I used them all: AWS, Google, Azure, DO, Linode, Vultr, UpCloud (mostly for my clients). They are similar but not the same. On my test Linode got best results for Block Storage, so for now they are a winner :-)
hi there!
well, that pretty much depends on what your primary locations are, whether you need some particular config settings and a couple more other factors. probably this article "aws vs digitalocean vs hetzner" can answer your question
and here you can calculate your monthly server costs (it has 2 options from the article listed)
Thanks, in general I do agree. With regards to Hetzner - they are huge and well known (est in 1997). I remember times when the cloud was not available and they were the way to go for cost effective dedicated servers.
The hosting provider can be important too.
We work with hosting companies and manage lead generation for a couple of managed cloud companies.
I can get up to 20% off on Vultr since one of our clients is a key person there.
Many thanks for your comment. I think I'll go with Linode as on paper they have fastest disk on Block Storage and my product will rely on them.
Linode was and is good. After the acquisition by Akamai Linode has become more business focused now.
I've been on a managed vultr server for almost a year and its been smooth sailing for me.
If you require a fixed server size, I would never go with AWS - it’s way too expensive. AWS is not about reliabilty but bursting where you can add and remove large number of server resources fast and easy, or even in a fully automated way. In comparison, with cheaper providers like OVH, you would need to order these servers using an order form, wait for your request to be validated by humans, wait until the servers are provisioned, pay up front for a month etc. It could take hours.
I would say that OVH is not that slow, most of the time you got an info upfront how long it will take to provision server for you and the slowness is on the bare metal ones. I would say that all cloud providers can spin servers (VPS) fast.
I will need "fixed size" servers/VPS (aka cannot use serverless Lambdas etc) and I am actually thinking to go with Linode.
You can use Google cloud or Azure as well. Probably digital ocean and build your own clusters. I think it highly depends on your use case, experience and scaling cost etc..
Yeah, I was thinking from other angle. As this would be developer tool, like a Firebase clone, when you're connecting to it from your own server, then I guess in ideal scenario it should be on same servers as yours... or not that important?
Aha, from that perspective may be AWS for the footprint but I don't think it really matters that much where it's hosted as much as having the right architecture.. think of firebase itself people are hosting apps everywhere and using firebase backend services, successfully, in addition to that many things are happening on the client side in the case of firebase and similar services, right?
Yup, I do agree that it doesn't matter that much, as far as you're using good, reliable provider. Was wondering how other people see it.