
Ask HN: Where do you host your webapp? - kr1
Which web hosting provider do you use ?
======
buro9
Linode.

Found their machines to be faster than Slicehost, the service to be superb,
they have datacenters around the world that you can select to be your location
(I chose London, UK as my users are here), and recently they upgraded the RAM
for free in all VMs they run.

Hosting with them has been a delight. Slicehost are a very close 2nd in my
opinion, but Linode are #1 currently.

~~~
petercooper
I used SoftLayer for a few years. They're a _great_ dedicated server provider.
Perhaps even the best in unmanaged. But.. I downgraded to Linode to save some
money and was amazed at how performant even their small VPSes are. I could run
what I ran on a $200 box at SoftLayer for about $80 spanning 2 VPSes at
Linode, no trouble.

~~~
Skyline
+1 for SoftLayer for unmanaged dedicated servers. We've been using them for
all of our dedicated servers since April 2007.

------
mark_l_watson
First, I'll mention what I no longer do: rent servers by the month from places
like 1and1 or Rackspace. You probably get good value, but at an admin cost.

What I do use:

1\. VPS from a quality hosting company. I use RimuHosting and people I know
also like Linode. I like the extra level of managed server support for backup,
maintaining RAID devices, etc.

2\. AWS - love AWS. Some people have problems with performance of SimpleDB and
SQS but these services handle queries in parallel so, for example, for a web
app that needs to access a lot of data to render a page, queries can be done
all at once. (Same comment on AppEngine's datastore)

3\. AppEngine - great if your application is a good fit for the platform.
Watch out for long loading request times: I use Java with Objectify, and I can
keep loading request times down to about 1 second. (Non-loading requests are
obviously a lot faster).

4\. Heroku - for Rails apps. Love it.

~~~
bradleyland
Ditto for Rimuhosting.

~~~
jpenney
Yeah add my recommendation for RH. I've been with them for about 3 years,
they've been fantastic.

------
metachris
I can recommend <http://hetzner.de/en> for root servers in Germany. For
example the EQ-4 package (for €49 per month):

* Intel Core i7-920 Quad-Core with Hyper-Threading

* 8 GB DDR3 RAM

* 2 x 750 GB SATA-II HDD (Software-RAID 1)

* 5 TB transfer; €6,90 for an additional TB

* 100 GB backup space for free, nice control interface (incl. reboot), NS control, good support

~~~
ohashi
WOW that's cheap. You don't say anything about service/support though?

~~~
sl_
The competition in this market is quite strong in germany, there are 5 major
companys offering basically the identical dedicated server service. The
servers are not virtualized, therefor you usually have to commit to longer
running contracts or higher setup fees.

~~~
avar
Would you mind enumerating what 5 companies those are?

~~~
trin_
i dont know which 5 he means but i guess:

<http://www.hetzner.de/> <http://www.server4you.de/> <http://www.strato.de/>
<http://www.hosteurope.de/> <http://1und1.de/>

~~~
kornholi
also <http://www.serverloft.com/>

------
meroliph
If it _really_ needs to scale: AWS EC2

For DNS: Dnsmadeeasy.

For low latency content delivery: Akamai

For dirt cheap makeshift content delivery: several servers from 478east

For servers that need lots of RAM(>24GB) on the cheap: webnx

~~~
mrkurt
Here's a general rule of thumb: If you're paying for Akamai, you're paying too
much. :)

~~~
petercooper
What does this mean? That Akamai commonly provide free services to high
profile, high traffic sites that need their levels of throughput? Or..?

~~~
mrkurt
It really just means Akamai's expensive and you should find someone else to do
CDN stuff. :)

~~~
jbyers
VPS.net resells Akamai at shockingly low prices.

~~~
mrkurt
Their Wiki says it's Highwinds: <http://www.vps.net/wiki/cdn-more-info>

~~~
jread
VPS.net sells both highwinds and Akamai. Akamai is $100 for 1 TB. However,
they only offer origin pull, so performance will be slightly degraded versus
using their NetStorage.

[http://www.vps.net/forum/public-forums/technical-
discussions...](http://www.vps.net/forum/public-forums/technical-
discussions/2472-akamai-questions)

------
math
I've used both prgmr.com and linode.com and my experience with both has been
excellent. I currently use prgmr.com to host all my projects (which are only
hobby projects) because they are very cheap. There is no fancy admin system,
but I don't need one. Their SLA isn't any worse than linode. I have had no
issues with downtime. My one experience with support resulted in a very good
outcome.

------
jasonkester
We have half a rack at a colo in Portland. All our public sites live on a
single fast box.

Before that, everything was running off a fast desktop machine sitting behind
a Business DSL line at Sam's house. I'd highly recommend that option, since
it's so cheap compared to VPS and you get to use as big a box as you like (and
as many too). You only really outgrow it when your bandwidth starts to max out
the line, which is a lot later than you'd expect.

Twiddla survived it's first few Reddittings in that garage. It was only for
SXSW and the simultaneous TechCrunching, RRW'ing, LifeHackering, and
Mainstream Pressing that followed that forced our hand in moving it someplace
a bit more professional.

~~~
paolomaffei
except when you DSL line goes down.

~~~
jasonkester
In two years of self-hosting, we had a few minor downtime instances, but
nothing to do with the DSL:

[http://expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/08/redundant-is-
never...](http://expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/08/redundant-is-never-
redundant-enough.html)

You run the same risks hosting at home as you do in a datacenter. Things can
go down and it's your job to put them back up. There's no greater chance of
the ISP cutting off a Business DSL line that happens to point to a residence
than to a business downtown.

~~~
andrewvc
Depends on where you live, but your house doesn't have redundant connections
and service contracts to fix them ASAP.

Your home net connection may be reliable, now, but if something bad happens it
could be down for days, not hours.

~~~
jasonkester
When you're starting out, your service can, quite frankly, be down for an
entire day and it won't kill you. Once you've got enough traction that
downtime could be a money-losing issue, you can step up.

But let's be realistic. Plenty of real businesses host their public site from
their own office. At least, several of the startups I've worked for have their
own server closet. Many of them don't have redundant internet connection nor
redundant power.

It's OK to be a little bit flaky. Look at the poster-child for flakiness (some
microblogging service that seems to be popular among, well, everybody), and
you'll notice it's still pretty successful even with it's weekly tech-blog-
worth downtime. Your average little startup probably doesn't need five nines
from the word go. What it does need, though, is a backend setup that only
costs $50/month. Hosting from your home-office will give you that.

~~~
limmeau
Depends on the business. I wouldn't outsource, say, my bookkeeping to a
startup web company whose servers I notice to be unreachable for a longer
amount of time.

------
donw
Linode.

I've got about a decade of experience as a sysadmin, and I can vouch that
their staff definitely knows what they're doing.

------
Daniel42
I've got dedicated servers from the french companies OVH and Online.net
(previously known as Dedibox) since four years. The price is cheap including
unlimited free reinstalls and a rescue mode. The service is great IMHO. I've
also had one server from LeaseWeb but they are more expensive and comes with
less services.

I'm interested in cloud hosting like Amazon EC2 or VPS like SliceHost,
especially because I want to have my servers in more than only one country but
so far all the solutions I found were not as great and/or cheap than the ones
I use.

Here are some links for specific low cost servers:

<http://www.kimsufi.co.uk/ks/> \- OVH, great and cheap little servers!

<http://www.ovh.co.uk/products/rps_offers.xml> \- OVH, great too but no disks,
they use iSCSI which is better because it removes hard drive failure risks but
with bad disk performance costs.

[http://www.online.net/serveur-dedie/comparatif-des-offres-
de...](http://www.online.net/serveur-dedie/comparatif-des-offres-de-
location.xhtml) \- Online.net, the other good french hosting company for
dedicated server.

BTW until now most of my servers were hosted at my home but I'm moving to
another country, this will not be possible anymore, too bad! Independence is
one of my top priority so I don't want to be stuck with any hosting company if
I find better somewhere else, like in my next basement!

------
Brainix
Google App Engine. :-) Download the SDK. Write your app in Python. Click one
button, and deploy it to Google's cloud.

~~~
rlpb
What options do you have if you decide to stop using Google? Are there
alternative server implementations available?

~~~
michaelbuckbee
There was AppDrop - <http://github.com/jchris/appdrop> \- but it doesn't look
like it's being maintained anymore.

------
nader
Using a couple of dedicated root servers from hetzner =>
<http://www.hetzner.de/en/> don't know exactly how the connection to the usa
is but around europe it's super fast...and cheaper than aws, slicehost or
similar.

~~~
kranner
How long have you been with them?

I've heard that their customer support can be less than cordial.

~~~
mseebach
I've been with them for I think about three or four years. I havn't thought to
rate their service on cordiality, but they've been perfectly competent and
fast the few times I've needed them.

------
limmeau
I use Webfaction for my small stuff (and have no big stuff). You get a SSH
account on a Linux server and can run any web server program behind their
reverse proxy, as long as it fits into your plan's memory limit.

<http://www.webfaction.com/>

I've experienced their customer service as friendly and competent.

------
kajecounterhack
Rackspace Cloud -- Is it true that it's overpriced? I'm really happy with it
and I don't use many resources ($11/month right now, maybe) people have been
telling me that it's actually really expensive when you're running something
real though. Hrm, I'm considering a linode since everyone's seems so satisfied
with them

~~~
antidaily
Same here. Only complaint is a significant spike in attacks. Which may or may
not have anything to do with them, but started right after we switched from
ServerBeach.

------
herrherr
If it's Ruby: Heroku

If it's Python: App Engine

Anything else: Linode

~~~
startupcto
Heroku is horribly slow, I wouldn't recommend it. Go with Linode, slice host
or Rackspace cloud

~~~
mark_l_watson
I have seen this comment before, but I believe it is only valid for free
accounts which get swapped out after a short period of no incoming requests. I
think that for any paid plan, your app is always loaded so there is no loading
request delay. You might want to give it another try with the lowest cost plan
and see if your results are different.

~~~
startupcto
Yes I'm referring to the free plan. I don't get it, why let trial users try
with a subpar offering, it really is bad for "showing off" what Heroku is. I
would put free trials at 30 or 60 days limit and give trial users something to
talk about.

------
znt
I'm using Google Application Engine with a hacked version of Django (Django
Nonrel).

You get both App Engine Admin Console and Django Admin Module => Double Win!

Worked pretty well so far.

~~~
endlessvoid94
Agreed. I recently had to move away from AppEngine for a project that involved
outbound connections and I KNOW I'm going to really miss the dashboard. Do you
know of any third-party tools I could install to get anything even remotely
similar?

~~~
znt
Nope sorry, I'm a total newbie when it comes to webapps too. Maybe you should
start an "Ask HN" about it.

------
theycallmemorty
<https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/>

The pricing can't be beat for static content and I haven't noticed any
problems with uptime.

~~~
Wilfred
I have used NFS for two years now without any complaints. If you're doing
something small-scale, it's an excellent service at great pay-as-you pay
scheme.

------
endlessvoid94
I run ThatHigh.com on Google App Engine. I'm building a friend's author
website on Dreamhost and I'm building a new twitter-related web app on linode
using django.

------
visava
I am currently using 2 Linode 512 MB servers for a simple free application.
One of my Linode got hacked recently. But for another paid app I am exploring
other options like PEER1 for managed Security such as IDS and Managed Firewall
/ Load balancer. It would cost significantly more than ($600 - $1200) Still
not sure whether I should be managing my own security using tools such as
OSSEC/Snort or outsource it.

What are the solutions everybody is using for Load Balancing and Security.

~~~
wizard_2
Do you mind sharing about how you got hacked?

~~~
visava
Linode guys contacted me that my server was being used to carry out ssh brute
force attacks. I saw that somebody had created a user named test on my Linode.
I think it might be related to postfix or dovecot. After I stopped those
services so far there have been no problems. The other services I have running
are Apache, Tomcat and ssh.

------
VoxPelli
Both Linode and Slicehost.

I like the Slicehost admin system more than Linode's, but Linode got servers
in Europe which is a big plus - and Linode have better specs than Slicehost as
well.

------
davidedicillo
Heroku, they just make your life so much easier. For those few things
(especially client stuff) where we need LAMP we host on Rackspace Cloud.

------
pbz
SoftLayer, very professional.

~~~
nwilkens
Agreed.

As a server management company, we get a chance to see the support side of
many hosting companies.

Softlayer is still the best for dedicated server in our opinion.

@mnxsolutions

------
thespy
how can you compare hosting companies when you do not have ALL server specs?
Really, how?

For example, Linode does not disclose the type of disk drive they use nor
slicehost disclose theirs. Hosting compaies always have a thing or two to
hide. And trust me if it is cheap there may be something hidden out of plain
view.

I use <http://www.servint.com> and they are really transparent. They use RAID
10 SAS 15K RPM disk drives, and run their VPSes on Dual Xeon Quad Core
processors. Free cpanel, free daily backups. Linode can beat them in pricing
but guess what? Check the server specs. I asked Linode what kind of disk they
were using in an email and they said they cannot disclose the information!!!
Servint is open and they show you everything they use. Free cpanel, free
backups. What else do you want.

Lots of this hosting companies, have those as addons, and you end up even
paying more. People concentrate too much on base pricing. Please get the
addons you will need then calculate final price.

------
DrJokepu
I wonder if anyone could recommend a VPS service that runs Windows (too)?

~~~
binarymax
Dare I say it, but if you need to run Microsoft in the cloud then Azure is
probably a good bet these days. Also, if you don't already have MSDN and want
to run a Microsoft stack you can get a BizSpark license and that comes with
some good freebies.

~~~
svnv
We use azure for our webapp. Works great so far, although the azure-website
for managing server deployments is not very good. Also, you can use powershell
and the azure tools for VS2010 instead of the azure-website.

~~~
sriramk
I'd love to hear more about what you don't like about the site (email address
on my profile page).

Btw, I ran the feature team that built the APIs that powershell and Visual
Studio use. So if you don't like those, that's probably my fault. :)

~~~
vyrotek
We also use Azure. Deploying from Visual Studio is pretty slick. The biggest
problem in general with Azure deployments is the speed. Perhaps its normal,
but its pretty annoying to wait 15+ minutes to deploy and wait for a Web and
Worker role to be 'Ready'

Its also VERY annoying that only 1 Live account can have permission to sign in
and manage the Account and Services. Yes, I know you can do some stuff with
the certificates to allow others to deploy, but its a huge pain. Especially
for a startup with a few people who are trying to learn and manage our
account.

------
bkrausz
Slicehost for my personal box. AWS for gazehawk.com (crazy architecture,
looking forward to blogging about it)

Used to be on VPSLink (was one of their first customers) but they sold
recently and everything quickly went to shit. Don't think I'd recommend them
anymore.

------
terrellm
I use Engine Yard for an e-commerce Rails app. Deployment is simple with a
post commit hook. I simply commit and push to Github and the rest is done. You
are on your own unless you fork over at least $250/month for a support plan
though.

I've used Heroku for smaller Rails and Sinatra apps.

For my Windows Dedicated running some .NET apps and a Linux VPS for a few
Wordpress blogs, I use Liquid Web. I feel they are better than most hosts as
far as speed, support, and reliability but not yet a Rackspace.

I use Amazon Cloudfront for content delivery and S3 for backups for all of
these sites.

------
primemod3
Slicehost.

~~~
patio11
All of my personal sites are on Slicehost, and I can't say enough good things
about them. I've also got one client site on Heroku and, while there has been
a learning curve, I really love the amount of server administration I have to
do (which is "none").

------
troels
I'm starting an app up now, and I'm using Heroku. It's really as good as it
says it is, but obviously it's only a viable choice if you use Ruby.

~~~
chrislo
And shortly, node.js:
[http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/4/28/node_js_support_ex...](http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2010/4/28/node_js_support_experimental/)

------
Magneus
Linode for me.

~~~
pizzaman
Linode doesn't say how much CPU you get, where other hosts (like vps.net) tell
you. Isn't that an important info?

~~~
carbocation
From [http://www.linode.com/faq.cfm#how-do-i-get-my-fair-share-
of-...](http://www.linode.com/faq.cfm#how-do-i-get-my-fair-share-of-cpu) ,
they state that you get access to the full CPU of the box (if idle/best case),
or access to your fair share of the CPU (if fully loaded/worst case). For the
smallest plans this could mean 1/40th the overall CPU if under load. They only
put accounts of the same size on each machine.

~~~
pizzaman
yeah i saw that, but still. how much is my minimum share? i scanned their site
and couldn't find any hardware info, perhaps i'm missing it - maybe it's not
really that important since i get to use more than the minimum if the CPU
isn't maxed out.

------
xyzzyb
I'm on Dreamhost and it's been fine for my limited sites. They're cheap, give
me ssh access, and I can install whatever I need. I let them handle my
registration as well, nice and easy.

I've used my primary domain to variously host standard HTML/php, a perl-based
wiki/blog, a ruby on rails blog, and most recently a django blog.

I've also use it to host a private git repository, do ssh tunneling, etc.

Not bad for $8 a month.

~~~
mkramlich
I had several bad experiences with uptime and configuration wackiness with a
client's site on Dreamhost. No problems with WebFaction. Linode is my current
favorite and default generic platform.

------
amorphid
Heroku. I love you Heroku.

------
yekmer
Linode works great for me, it is cheaper and faster than slicehost, but lacks
of backuping your entire disk with one click.

~~~
mhansen
Didn't they just add that feature? <http://www.linode.com/backups/>

------
neeleshs
Linode. The only issue is my app creates subdomains on signup, and it takes
about 5 minutes on linode to become active.

~~~
donw
Use wildcard cnames, and have your application handle them internally.

You can even do this for MX records with Linode, thanks to their _excellent_
support staff adding the functionality to their DNS interface when I asked for
it. :)

~~~
neeleshs
Thanks! Completely overlooked the cname. Was struggling with A records all the
while

------
blahpro
I used to use Slicehost, but moved to Linode once they launched their backup
service. The admin UI isn't as pretty, but IMO the service is better (and they
have VPS hosts in London, which shaves a few milliseconds off for me).

At Fantastic, we recently moved from Slicehost to The Rackspace Cloud. We're
pretty impressed with them so far.

------
jim_h
I went with Linode since they let me set the size of the vm. I can then make
my own copies/backups. Slicehost does have a nicer looking interface though,
but I think their backup service is not free.

I've also been waiting for prgmr.com to have more available slots so I can
give them a try.

------
jalada
Twitterfall.com is mostly run off a dedicated server from Rapidswitch (one of
their base specs I think), though we also have a couple of VPSes from before
we had the dedi. One from xeneurope.co.uk and one from Gandi. Both are
reasonable. Rapidswitch is awesome.

------
EvanK
Slicehost for my personal website (plus $5 extra a month for snapshot
backups). At work, we use Rackspace dedicated servers & managed hosting...its
expensive, but it means we don't need to hire a sys-admin

------
scorpioxy
Depends.

For more control, I have a VPS on linode. But usually I just publish on
webfaction.

------
matthewphiong
I'm a Rackspace Cloud customer until I found this post. After reading much of
the comments, mostly +1 to Linode, I decided to give it a try.

The service is superb, instant activation and the speed made me jump ship.

------
thinkzig
LicketyTrip just moved from a 8 year old, colo'd, dual P3 PowerEdge - yah, I
said P3 :) - to a large Windows 2008 instance on EC2. I've been very happy
with the results.

------
talleyrand
I use Slicehost and am very satisfied, although I always hear wonderful things
about Linode. <http://cliniccases.com>

------
justinchen
EngineYard Cloud (EC2), S3 for images, Edgecast for CDN

------
jacquesm
Bulk data goes to Leaseweb (cheap, tons of bandwidth) and virtual access for
the web servers (very expensive, extremely reliable and great service)

------
erreon
Linode and Heroku here. I am still learning, but Heroku is awesome for quick
little apps and Linode is awesomely fast with great support teams.

------
swah
I have a VPS, but I'm wondering what happens when you just pay to "host your
site" in some defined infra-structure (Python+MySQL for example) ?

------
gdltec
I am currently using webhost4life but I am in the process of moving my web
apps to rackspace.com and my blogs to wpengine.com

------
ohashi
I use LiquidWeb, expensive... but I am a server management noob and they are
quite excellent.

~~~
artlogic
They are very expensive compared to most other services. I was going to host
with them, since I live in Lansing and am acquainted with the owner, but
Linode is much cheaper (for VPS) and I found the support to be nearly as good.
If you're hosting on Linux you may want to consider taking a look at Linode.

------
acangiano
Slicehost and The Planet's Server Cloud.

------
bminde
Webfaction, Rackspace Cloud and Heroku.

------
bobx11
google app engine, rackspace cloud sites, rackspace cloud servers, and one
server left at serverbeach

------
empire29
linode.com for shouldget.com and big4work.com

------
jamesbritt
The Planet.

------
lzw
App Engine, for everything.

I've been using Unix for 3 decades and at this point I see any time spent
administering or setting up servers as time wasted when I could be adding
value to the product. App engine gives me all the administration and half of
the scalability solution I need, so I spend my time adding value.

I am amazed that so many of you have root. I'm guessing it comes because you
value the control, and don't mind spending time on system administration?

~~~
timeuser
What is everyone doing for data backup when using App Engine?

~~~
bnoordhuis
You can use the bulk up/downloader:
[http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/uploading...](http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/tools/uploadingdata.html)

The admin interface has an export option too, if memory serves.

------
alnayyir
Linode!

Fastest there is, cheap, and they have an API.

Plus no contract.

------
robwgibbons
I use and recommend Webfaction.

