
Ask HN: How/where should I host my personal site? - dajomu
I want to set up a personal site, with a blog and a way to host an online cv + some of my projects, etc..
I&#x27;d like to host it myself, but I&#x27;m unsure of the best service to use. I live in the UK (if that matters), I&#x27;ve just started a career as a web developer about a year ago. I&#x27;d like to host it as cheaply as possible, I&#x27;m also not averse to buying a domain name and hosting separately.
I also don&#x27;t mind what language&#x2F;platform to use (I&#x27;m happy to learn anything).
Do you guys have any suggestions?
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cdevroe
Since you're just getting started as a web developer I think the suggestion to
try out GitHub Pages, Jekyll, and setting up your own domain name and perhaps
even hosting your own site on your own hand-built platform would really teach
you what you need to know to do your job well. Even if all of those parts of
the job won't be what you do day-to-day just knowing what is involved can help
you communicate with any team you may work with in the future.

As an aside, I run a hosted-CMS called Barley that allows you to use just use
HTML, CSS, and JS to run and host your site. It would not teach you as much
about your new career as it would if you use your own host, your own platform,
etc. but it might be something fun to poke at. It comes with a 30 day free
trial and includes unlimited storage, content edits, dropbox syncing, and more
but since you're just starting out if you'd like 1 personal site for free for
life send me an email
[http://plainmade.com/company](http://plainmade.com/company) \-- Barley is
here: [http://getbarley.com](http://getbarley.com)

~~~
dajomu
Wow, thank you! Someone that I know has recommended Jekyl, but I didn't really
get why it was so great. I'll have a second look at it though. I'll have to
really think about what I want to use. I develop full stack at the moment
(well, from configuring servers/backend development all the way to
css/js/html) so I'm looking for something that might develop my range of
skills. I'll check out barley and get back to you about that (when it isnt
2:30am). Thanks again for the offer!

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patrickk
Scriptogram ([http://scriptogr.am/](http://scriptogr.am/)) might suit your
needs. Free web hosting on Dropbox. Very easy to use and setup. Perfect for
blogging with a few static pages for your CV, links to Github etc.

Make sure you buy a proper domain, e.g. yourName.me. Check out
[http://leandomainsearch.com/](http://leandomainsearch.com/) for domain ideas.

There's a list of other Dropbox website hosting services here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6098616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6098616)

Also: [http://lifehacker.com/5534456/five-best-personal-landing-
pag...](http://lifehacker.com/5534456/five-best-personal-landing-pages)

~~~
doubledub
That lifehacker link should save a ton of time for "dajomu". If Wordpress is
preferred, Ryan Sullivan wrote a quick blip about best hosting. Search for
"Performance of 7 Top WordPress Hosting Companies Compared".

~~~
dajomu
I'm tempted not to go for wordpress, as that happens to be about 50% of the
work that I do at the moment and I'm looking to learn something new. I was
thinking of something in either ruby, python or node. I'm unsure which one to
choose (Though Ruby seems to be the flavour of the month it seems like node
and python will have more varied applications if I want to expand my career).

------
andrew_gardener
Try using:

Hosting - github pages for free Static hosting for personal website
[http://pages.github.com/](http://pages.github.com/)

Blog: Jekyll - creates static websites with blogging capabilities so it works
well with github pages. You can also add static pages for cv, etc.
[http://jekyllrb.com/](http://jekyllrb.com/)

Domain name: there are many options out there. use whatever you think best (I
use namecheap and they're decent so far
[http://www.namecheap.com/](http://www.namecheap.com/))

~~~
joeld42
I'll second the namecheap recommendation. I've used it for registration and
hosting for setting up a few sites for friends and I've always had a good
experience with them. They offer hosting as well as domain name registration.

~~~
dajomu
I was halfway through buying from namecheap, when I kind of felt odd about
giving all of my details over to an American company. I know it's probably
pretty biased of me, but after everything that's happened recently I thought I
might have some tiny smidgen of legal protection if I went with a British
company. I'm not an American citizen, so I don't feel like I would have any
rights if there ever was a problem with my domain. It's not that I think I'm
going to do anything that would warrant shutting down my domain name, but it's
one of those things that just makes you think twice. p.s. I'm well aware how
terrible my own country's surveillance methods are, but at least I'm
considered to be a citizen here.

~~~
andrew_gardener
That's a good point I suppose. I'm Canadian so I'm in the same boat as you. I
guess I'm not as worried since they (NSA) already have all my information from
everything else I do online (one of the bad parts about being in Canada is
that almost all connections passes through the states at some point).

... And now I've just depressed myself over the state of the internet

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beat
Buy a domain, for sure. You don't want to make your credibility vulnerable to
the fate of your underlying platform, whether that's to go under, or just to
become uncool.

~~~
dajomu
Thanks, this was exactly what I was thinking about. I took the plunge just now
and registered dajomu.com for a couple of years. Now I have to build
something!

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aminbandali
If you don't necessate to use WordPress and want to try something cool, I'd
suggest Octopress ([http://octopress.org/](http://octopress.org/)) + github
pages to setup a static blog. There are lots of nice themes around for it as
well. You can add a domain by simply creating a CNAME file with the domain
adress or you can tie it to a subdomain on your domain and use the main domain
for your host (if you plan to get).

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mike-cardwell
Get a $5/month VPS from Digital Ocean, learn how to configure and administer
Apache or Nginx or both. Write a website using PHP. That seems to be where
most of the jobs/money is here in the UK atm.

If you do all that, you can sell yourself as a sysadmin/developer. You can get
a full time job. You can contract on the side, or full time. There's enough
work out there in the UK if you have these skills.

~~~
dajomu
Hi, thanks for the advice. I've been working at a web development company for
about a year (having had very little experience beforehand). I've mainly been
working on sites in php and .net, though I'd really like to learn something
that will contribute to my future career options and allow me to expand my
portfolio. It seems like everyone on hacker news loves python, ruby or node,
so I'd like to have a go at a larger project with one of them, I'm just being
indecisive with hosting (I also have about zero cash, so the cheapest hosting
would be preferable).

~~~
lifeisstillgood
I honestly would not touch php. (not flame bait)

Yes, host your own, it does not matter what, but make it your own. Write your
own CMS, at least that way you see why its worth not doing it again. You will
end up teaching yourself basic SEO, sensible deployment and backup processes.

Its well worth the effort.

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waxzce
Do you try Hakyll ? [http://jaspervdj.be/hakyll/](http://jaspervdj.be/hakyll/)
The best website static generator I think :-)

And you can host on EU law with Clever Cloud

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Donito
Heroku's free plan is a good option, but it does require some knowledge of
git/one of their supported framework. Good learning regardless.

~~~
dajomu
I just signed up for a Heroku free account, so I may well give this a go....
I'd like to do some experimentation. I want to pick the most fun/difficult way
to do this if I can.

~~~
elclanrs
If you want a good challenge, get a private VPS for $5/month and set
everything up yourself: SSH, Apache, users, permissions, Git repo, etc...

~~~
dajomu
That's bloody tempting, can I do that through Heroku?

~~~
elclanrs
I don't think so. Heroku is a PaaS (Platform as a Service). You can connect
with SSH but everything is mostly set-up for you already but I don't have
Heroku so I'm not sure. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is just a remote
computer typically with a bare Linux installation, and you build up from there
and install what you need, Ruby, Node, PHP... Check
[https://www.digitalocean.com/](https://www.digitalocean.com/), they're pretty
popular.

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ulisesrmzroche
I'd go the github pages route. It's free and you can get a little branding
boost and easy linkage by using username.github.io

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rsamvit
If its going to be a static site, host it on S3 for pennies. I'm also a fan of
Jekyll

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devb0x
looking at your comments you also want to play. so you need to get shared
hosting that allows python or a vps where you can do what you want.

~~~
dannnnnnny
Totally!

Got any good/cheap/suggestions?

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rk0567
use jekyll or middleman and host it on a VPS (Digital Ocean is a good choice).

