Where do you host your apps these days (and why)?
There are more hosting options than ever, from traditional VPS providers to fully managed platforms and serverless setups.
Curious to know what everyone's using in 2025:
Are you on DigitalOcean, AWS, Fly.io, Vercel, Render, or something else entirely?
Do you prefer managing your own infrastructure or letting a platform handle it all?
What made you choose your current setup, cost, speed, ease, community, or something else?
Drop your current hosting stack and a quick reason behind it. Would you recommend it to others?
We currently host our DevOps Daily website using a mix of Cloudflare for DNS and security, and DigitalOcean for our infrastructure.
I am a bit biased here, but would like to showcase https://sherpa.sh/. We built it primarily for hosting our own NextJS apps, but we are rapidly expanding into other frameworks too, and hosting docker containers.
Why? We have extensive experience in the hosting industry and DevOps, stemming from our previous work. By building our infrastructure, we can offer a significantly lower price while maintaining the same or even better performance.
The end goal is to provide seamless and scalable hosting for the price of self-hosting.
Sounds promising! Love the idea of combining the ease of managed hosting with self-hosting prices. Curious to see how Sherpa evolves, especially with support for more frameworks and Docker coming in!
What frameworks would you like us to implement? Docker is already there and working.
Yes, we are running our infrastructure and not relying on AWS so that we can offer much better pricing.
We’ve been loving Fly. io lately..
Nice! I never gave Fly io a chance. Maybe I should.
My team currently uses vercel, pricing is good
Nice! I heard that they made some changes to their billing a few months ago that negatively affected many users. Was this also the case for you?
I recently bought Contabo subscription to host my AI powered tool
Nice! Contabo's pricing is hard to beat. How’s the performance been for your AI tool so far?
As it's in the development period, I don't really have that many users to measure performance. Though my tool is RAM and CPU heavy
personnaly i use vercel
Makes sense. Vercel really shines for frontend devs, especially with Next.js. Curious to see if people stick with it long term or go the self-hosting route once traffic picks up.
Vercel is for free now, you can use it
Totally get that. Vercel makes it so easy to get started, especially for frontend projects. Will be interesting to see if it still feels worth it once traffic grows and costs kick in.
I have been using cloudflare for DNS ans security and a custom VPS from Netcup for our Project.
Totally self hosted and managed by us including the DB and server.
Nice setup. Going fully self-hosted definitely gives you control! How's it been managing everything on your own?
I use Hetzner, and there a custom Laravel Envoy script to deploy a Swoole-powered PHP app in a Docker-based environment.
Nice! I'm a huge fan of Laravel as well!
I use digital ocean droplets with custom services, not even docker containers yet. I figured I'll worry about scaling when that'll be a problem I have.
Honestly, that’s a solid approach. No need to over-engineer early on. Curious though, any specific reason you're skipping Docker for now?
Mostly because I wanted the experience on deploying on bare metal, also saving costs.
Solid plan! And a great way to learn too.
Right now my hosting setup is a mix of DigitalOcean and Vercel. I use DigitalOcean for all backend services. Managed Kubernetes to run my .NET Core APIs. Managed PostgreSQL database. Spaces for object storage. DO Container Registry for storing Docker images. I use Vercel to host my frontend apps, built in Next.js
I’ve tried Azure and AWS before, but DigitalOcean just feels much simpler to set up and manage, especially when you don’t want to deal with overly complex interfaces or pricing models.
I’m currently trying to build a new project entirely on Next.js, including the backend. Curious to see how well it handles real-world scenarios and where the limitations are. Right now, I’m wrestling a bit with structuring the backend logic properly, especially with scalability in mind.
Solid mix. DO keeps things manageable, and Vercel's great for frontend. Curious how far you can push Next.js on the backend too, sounds like a fun experiment.
I’m using Miget for hosting my apps. It starts with a small free tier, but for POC it is enough. The deployment is easy, you can click addons like Postgres, Mongo, cache or deploy other blocks within a single project and wire things up effortlessly. I have my private project there, and we had in our startup a whole microservice system, and it does its job. Under the hood, there’s Kubernetes with a really smart and fair scheduler that assigns resources dynamically without downtimes.
Interesting, haven't heard much about Miget before. Sounds pretty smooth, especially for quick setups and POCs. How's it been handling more complex stuff at scale?
It’s pretty fresh, and they are stepping out of the MVP stage. I’ve tested it at scale on many microservices we built in a bookmaking startup (high throughput and low latency). It is easily scalable — you can define the number of replicas, assign specific amounts of CPU, RAM, and storage, whatever you want. It’s worth checking out.
I've using Railway lately. Easy to use, pay as you go, and you don't need to manage infra. It's also pretty cheap (min $5 / month) and you can host a lot of project, with their database
Railway is brilliant, I've got nextjs, node and laravel all running in the same environment with no issues so far.
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Railway's been gaining a lot of fans lately. I've not tried it yet myself. How's it been for reliability and cold starts?
For the use that I had with it, I would say it's pretty reliable and there is almost no cold starts. A sleeping container respond to incoming request in a second a less
Nice!
I've mainly been using DigitalOcean (App Platform or Droplets) with Cloudflare on top. It's simple, reliable, and gives me just enough control without overcomplicating things. Also love their managed products like databases, Kubernetes, Spaces and etc.
Solid stack! We've had a great experience with DigitalOcean too. Their managed offerings like Spaces and Kubernetes make it easy to stay focused on shipping instead of managing everything from scratch.
A mix of Contabo VPS' and object storage with some Azure services mixed in.
Still looking for an easy/reliable way to backup/restore Postgres databases. Eyeing Barman and Pgbackrest at the moment.
In my experience, most companies actually wish they could go full cloud and not deal with infrastructure themselves.
Self-hosting is rarely a choice, it’s usually something you're forced into because of legal, government, or compliance constraints. I’ve mostly seen it as a costly burden, not a benefit.
That’s why I run my indie project on Docker + Cloud Run. Backend services scale from 2 to 100,000 users (theoretically😄). Sure, not needed in the early days – but honestly, it’s no effort either.
Which advantages in going with Vercel, Railway, etc. I am missing?
As someone with a DevOps background, I usually lean toward self-managed setups! But I get why platforms like Vercel or Railway are appealing. For smaller projects, such platforms can save a ton of time early on.
Honest question: If you already know Docker and basic cloud deployment, do platforms like Vercel or Railway actually offer any real speed advantage?
Honest answer: I don't think they do if you already know Docker and cloud basics. But for a lot of people, platforms save time not just on setup, but also on things like initial config, maintenance, backups, scaling, SSL, and all the little edge cases that catch you off guard if you're not used to running servers, especially if you're mainly a frontend dev focused on your app rather than the infra.
vercel cuz it's free
Makes sense. Vercel really shines for frontend devs, especially with Next.js. Curious to see if people stick with it long term or go the self-hosting route once traffic picks up.
It's extremely expensive when your app grows. There are a lot of news about founders complaining about the price structure when the site grows.
Could you elaborate a bit more? When it comes to cost more than their concurrents?
Some sample cases would be a must.
Thanks.
Google "Vercel expensive" and you'll find a lot of discussion on HackerNews.
Vercel for its versatility
Hi. I use vercel for the Frontend because it is very convenient and also they offer a free plan
We deployed our backend on a vps from Hostinger. I wasn't able to find any free and convenient options. So, I chose this as it was cheaper
### **Project Name:** LAWFALL RP
* **Co-Founder Developer** (Unity engine)
* **3D Artist** (Optional but welcome)
**My Role:** Founder & Marketing Management
**My Previous Projects:** N/A (first major project, full-time commitment)
**Team Size:** 7 (looking to build a core founding team)
**Project Length:** 3–5 months for a vertical slice prototype (goal: attract players, content creators, and potential funding)
**Compensation:** Unpaid / Revshare (50% equity offered for co-founder developer)
---
### **Responsibilities:**
* **Developer (Co-Founder):** Lead development using Unity. Build core systems such as multiplayer networking (Photon, FishNet, or Unity Netcode), character control, inventory, UI, crime/police logic, and basic AI. You will be responsible for shaping the technical foundation of the game.
* **3D Artist (Optional):** Contribute to creating semi-realistic modular environments, props, and vehicles that fit the game’s tone and setting.
---
### **Project Description:**
**LAWFALL RP** is a roleplay-focused multiplayer game set in a grounded fictional world with crime, justice, and deep social systems at its core. Inspired by immersive RP experiences and open-ended storytelling, the game aims to provide meaningful player-driven interaction with consequences.
The setting blends realism with custom lore, featuring a world divided by power structures, corruption, and player-aligned roles. Our focus is to build systems that support long-term, evolving gameplay shaped by the community — such as police departments, crime syndicates, civil society roles, and narrative layers.
The project is currently at the **idea and design stage**, with documentation in progress. No assets or code exist yet — we are starting from scratch, with full creative freedom and vision.
Our first milestone is a **vertical slice prototype** that captures the game’s core systems and immersive RP mechanics. The goal is to build a community, attract early attention, and potentially secure support for full development.
We are seeking someone who believes in co-creation — not just a developer, but a partner who will help define the game from the ground up.
**Contact methods:**
Instagram: theshankar_raj_88
Discord: not_alone1
Telegram: @Alone_b68