CapRover is very interesting... I actually just use Linode + Treafik + Portainer and self host all my own stuff using Docker Compose. If I have a new app, I just use GitHub Actions to build and push a container to GitHub Packages (GHCR) and then on my server I create a docker-compose.yaml and I fire it up, the labels link it all up to Traefik.
Obviously deploying is manual right now since I have to SSH in and then pull and `docker compose up -d` but I could probably find something to bridge that gap.
Id be interested in seeing how CapRover can simplify all that for me...
So I spun up a Linode, installed CapRover, bought ultra cheap DNS from NameCheap using their guide to get cheap domain name and did a few deploys. Its really cool. Much easier than my approach.
You'll end up wanting to self-host everything in no time :) I've switched from Namecheap to Cloudflare because it's cheaper, and it's very easy to integrate with Google Search Console and Cloudflare Pages.
Because VPS is cheaper than any managed service offering out there when you start to add up the features. For example Azure App Services can host: .NET, PHP, Python, and Node WITHOUT a container, but the second you want a custom DNS name its incredibly expensive.
A $5 VPS + CapRover instantly gives you your own app host + CICD server which you fully own, none of your data is owned by AWS or Azure either.
Most people dont self host because they dont want to worry about updating the OS and Database servers and clustering and HA/DR. Which is far. But for the average dude like me spinning up fun side projects and random stuff, why wouldn't I self-host it for next to nothing?
I'm trying to decide whether to do this same thing or try and keep all of the "backend" parts in Cloudflare Workers (Pages Functions) and other "serverless" options (such as Turso for the DB).
Obviously deploying is manual right now since I have to SSH in and then pull and `docker compose up -d` but I could probably find something to bridge that gap.
Id be interested in seeing how CapRover can simplify all that for me...