

Ask HN: Which hosting company to use for a small SaaS product? - adrian_pop

I am planning my own SaaS product, which should be ready in about 2-3 months of development.<p>I make some research on the targeted market, there is potential and the competition is quite low. As far as I know there are only 2 or 3 competitors which sell almost the same product, but none of them  are using the SaaS model. There is also place for innovation, which I'll implement.<p>The idea is to provide wordpress hosting, support and security, theme development, for a specific market which is under saturated.<p>I don't want to get a $100 dedicated server, because in the first month, I might have...zero income. Something under $50 would be great.<p>Basic equirements:
 - dynamically allocate more resources
 - on demand dedicated IPs
 - custom DNS<p>Thank you.
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excid3
Digital Ocean just had some really great performance reviews on HN the other
day and they are $5/mo for the minimum tier.

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trustfundbaby
I was a linode customer and I just bought a digital ocean box.

I was paying $29.99 (about 31 with tax) for a 768MB RAM box with 2.3Ghz cpu
and 4 cores, 36GB storage and 300GB transfer with an additional $7.95 for
backup ... so $40 all together. That eats a chunk of the $100/mo I make off my
very small rails app.

For $20 ... I get 2.1ghz 2 core cpu, 2GB of RAM, 30GB storage (SSD btw), 3TB
transfer with backups thrown in for free. So I save an extra $20 a month ...
but if everything goes well, I'll probably shell out the extra $20 to get a
4GB box if the next 6 months with Digital Ocean go well just so I can be with
in a better server neighborhood.

~~~
dkroy
I would be interested in hearing how that works out for you. So far their
offering has looked to be the most tempting for me.

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luos
AppFog has a free tier under 2GB Ram, 50 GB bandwith and 100 Mb database.

I think it's not the cheapest but it gives you some time before you have to
invest. I didn't used it in production, but for testing it was good enough. I
could deploy a scala-lift app in a not too hard way. (1 GB ram, 2-3 hours
thinking and one af push, but I was not familiar with lift or clouds at all)

<https://www.appfog.com/products/appfog/pricing/>

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philbarr
My only problem with AppFog is the "50GB Bandwidth". They don't let you know
how much you've used - they just say "we will start slowing down your app when
you hit the limit."

Obviously they need to get paid for their service, but I prefer to know when
the cost is going to happen.

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saravk
Digital Ocean looks interesting. But if you want a dedicated box check out
Hetzner.de. 49Euros/month gets you a i7 Quad core beast with 16GB RAM and
2x3TB HDDs.

Moving from Linode (20$/month plan for 512MB ram) gave me something like 30x
capacity increase for only about 2.5x price increase. Mind blowing.

~~~
calinet6
Agree. Dedicated servers are getting cheaper and cheaper. I'm running a box at
Incero (<http://www.incero.com>) for $121/month that's decked out, with quad-
core Xeon, 16GB RAM, SSD, and unmetered bandwidth. It's really a different
world of performance for a relatively modest price increase from my former VPS
($80/mo, for a 2GB Linode).

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samwillis
Linode, easy to start small and grow just by re-sizing the server. They may
not be the cheapest but they have very good support and their guides are
perfect.

~~~
madsushi
I love Linode, but getting new IPs (a listed requirement) from Linode is like
pulling teeth. You have to prove you have a different SSL cert for each new IP
you request or they'll tell you to just use one IP with host-headers.

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clockwork_189
It would depend on your needs. For eg: do you need a L/W/M-AMP server or
something that can run Rails, or node.js. If all you are doing is wordpress
themes and templates, I assume you want a L/W/M-AMP server stack. AWS free
tier is awesome and more suited to your needs. Once you start gaining momentum
you will get charged, but hopefully you will be making positive revenue as
well. Windows azure, they have a free 3 month trial, but it gets expensive
there after. I personally use hostmonster, mainly because all the general
server admin stuff that I do not want to worry about is taken care of for me.
Their customer service is excellent as well. Other notable ones are Heroku,
MediaTemple and Hostgator.

~~~
clockwork_189
Oh another one that I forgot that I recently heard of: Firebase. Apparently it
provides you with an entire backend stack for your website. Makes it almost
magical, I personally like more control over my data, but if this is your
thing, be sure to try it out. They have a 5 minute tutorial to help you get a
better understanding of them as well!

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lsiunsuex
Never had a problem with Rackspace Cloud (running 5 right now for various
projects). < $20 / month for a basic server.

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whichdan
I've been happy with Rackspace Cloud too. Cheap servers, built-in DNS, built-
in CDN, built-in backups, and the support team will almost always go out of
their way to help, even if you don't have a managed server.

The MyCloud/OpenCloud control panel is still a little slow for managing a
large number of DNS entries, but hey, it's free.

~~~
grumps
Not to mention Loadbalancers for dirt cheap. Less known fact if you add the LB
the jump your BW to 1Gb/s

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noinput
pagodabox.com is a favorite. they also offer redis/memcache clusters etc and
chances are you'll do fine with their free tier for a while also. ondemand
IP's without SSL can start to cost you on various services, so watch out for
that.

quickstart on wordpress: <https://pagodabox.com/cafe/pagoda/wordpress>

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adrian_pop
Thank you everyone for input and taking time to answer my question.

Many of you suggested some companies with free tiers, but on a SaaS product, I
can't use that. I feel insecure, don't know why.

I would prefer something semi-managed, or easy to managed, without ssh. I know
a few basic linux commands, I know how to setup a lamp on a vps, but that's
all.

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MattBearman
I've had BugMuncher running on Linode since day 1. They're not the cheapest
(but they're definitely not overpriced either), but it's been rock solid.

The support staff really go above and beyond to help you get things sorted,
plus they've got a great library of guides to setting up a massive variety of
server software.

~~~
33degrees
I have to agree, Linode's support is second to none; they've helped me debug
problems that had little to do with them, and they respond very quickly.

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flavmartins
I use Webfaction and I LOVE IT.

I see a lot apps using MediaTemple, they seem to have a solid track record.

~~~
_neil
I've personally had poor experiences with MediaTemple's cheaper tiers when
deploying client sites. They may have improved in the past year or so, though.

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mmccaff
Give SolarVPS a look. <http://www.solarvps.com>

It is easy to change resources, request additional IPs, and use the built-in
DNS interface. $17.50/mo gets you a Linux with 2gb ram, 20gb disk, 1tb
bandwidth and 1 CPU core.

The support team is 24/7, and VPSs come with a server monitoring service
(SolarRay) that can alert you if one of your servers or services go down.

Also, a "One Click Application Install" feature just went into public beta. It
might be helpful for what you are thinking about doing because it'd let you
install, remove, backup, and restore multiple WordPress instances (among 200+
other apps) on your VPS in a snap.

Full disclosure: I am a developer at SolarVPS. :)

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tedchs
It sounds like you're trying to do Wordpress development and hosting for a
specific vertical. Think about the core of what you're offering -- is it the
hosting, or the design? Anything that's not your core, outsource it to
specialists. It sounds like your expertise is in Wordpress theme development,
so do that yourself. Outsource the actual hosting to a Wordpress-specific
host. I use WPEngine and their hosting & support are great.

If you don't want to use WPEngine, I would deploy to Amazon Elastic Beanstalk,
which gives you the same ease of deployment (git push) and management as
Heroku or Appfog, with the full control and power of direct access to the
underlying EC2 and ELB resources.

~~~
bjinwright
I will +1 for Amazon Elastic Beanstalk.

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lmm
Are you sure you're being rational about this? Your own time is going to be
worth far more than $100/month, your living expenses will be much more than
that. So spending the money isn't going to shorten your runway much.

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white_devil
Try www.kimsufi.com .. they have ridiculously cheap dedicated servers. I'm
using one now, but haven't had any "real load" yet.

Or if you insist on getting a VPS, how about www.gandi.net ?

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gee_totes
I'm a fan of AWS, and their free tier.

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anderspetersson
I always use heroku when starting a new project. It gives me a fast setup and
let me focus on the app during the pre-release process. If/when my apps get
big I move to linode or aws.

~~~
kyllo
I like Heroku's easy git integration. "git push heroku master" is such a
simple way to deploy your app.

I think your app has to use postgresql in order to deploy on Heroku, though.

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Harkins
"I don't want to get a $100 dedicated server, because in the first month, I
might have...zero income."

What is the cost of your time for 2-3 months of development? Is it over $100?

"Zero income" is your big risk, not whether you can code the product. Go find
your customers. Get commitments from them that they would pay your price for
your app so you know you'll be making money on day 1. Rob Walling's book
"Start Small, Stay Small" is a nice guide to this process.

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calihop
CaliHop Hosting is a great provider out of San Diego, California. They have
dedicated servers, VPS, and cloud hosting. Currently, they have a $99 special
on a very fast server:

\- Xeon E3-1270V2 (3.5Ghz, 4/8 Cores) \- 32GB DDR-3 ECC RAM \- 1 x 256GB
Samsung 840 Pro SSD or 2 x 1TB WD RE4 HDDs \- 10TB Premium Bandwidth Blend on
100Mbps Port $99/mo & Free Setup

www.calihop.net

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rrhyne
Don't go with SoftLayer cloud. I had an instance and it was super slow. Lagged
via SSH, HTTP, everything. Tried all kinds of things with their support who
always pushed it back on my optimization.

I moved out to a dedicated server (with softlayer, very happy with it) and
killed the instance. Restored the backup to a new instance and suddenly
everything was speedy.

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paborden
Second Rackspace, love it. Beanstalk for deployment of wp themes is fantastic.
Did not have a good experience with WPEngine. But other's have, so take that
with a grain of salt. Stay away from GoDaddy, obviously.

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valhallarecords
If you're using Python/Java, Google App Engine has a free tier. During
development when your traffic is low, you'll almost pay nothing. Minimal setup
as well.

~~~
saevarom
"The idea is to provide wordpress hosting, support and security, theme
development, for a specific market which is under saturated."

I guess python/java wouldn't work

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lexy0202
These guys have worked well for me, and really cheap for a low-endish box:
<http://infiniserv.com>

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staunch
I'm biased (since it's my thing), but Uptano is probably a good fit here.
<https://uptano.com/>

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raheemm
Check out the VPS reviews on lowendbox.com. I got a good VPS for only $4/month
- 2GB ram, 80GB disk, 1.5 TB monthly free bandwidth.

~~~
adrian_pop
I know lowendbox for about 2 years, and I read it about 2-3 times a month, and
there are many readers complaining of bad companies. I need something I can
rely on 24 hours a day.

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iSloth
OVH have some dedicated servers that start around $10/pm which is perfect :)

~~~
adrian_pop
Running a SaaS product on a dedicated server, needs a system administrator,
and I can't afford to pay one, at least not in the first months.

~~~
saevarom
How's that any different from VPS? You'll always need to administer the server
unless you use some kind of managed hosting or PaaS like Engine Yard or
Heroku.

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pratfall
Openshift has a free tier, and a lot of options to scale up.

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padseeker
webbynode

<http://webbynode.com>

