Hosting suggestion

Hello again,

I've been giving some thought to hosting for my Rails application, and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I'm a little short on cash (even more so since I plan on purchasing Ben Curtis' SaaS RailsKit), so I'm looking for an economic solution. I've heard that a VPS slice is the best choice in a case like this (I obviously don't have the funds for a dedicated server); what are the experiences with SliceHost? They offer the cheapest solution it seems; their basic package is $20/month as opposed to $150 for RailsMachine and nearly $400 for EngineYard. I don't have that kind of money at the moment, especially since I'm currently an unemployed .NET developer (the dark side, I know) dabbling in Rails.

The basic SliceHost plan provides 256MB of RAM and 10GB of Storage; would this be enough to start out with? My application is not very data intensive; it is a collaborative event planner and task management system for small businesses. I have not worked with VPS in the past, only shared hosting, but I don't think shared hosting is going to cut it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Wayne

Hello again,

I've been giving some thought to hosting for my Rails application, and I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I'm a little short on cash (even more so since I plan on purchasing Ben Curtis' SaaS RailsKit), so I'm looking for an economic solution. I've heard that a VPS slice is the best choice in a case like this (I obviously don't have the funds for a dedicated server); what are the experiences with SliceHost? They offer the cheapest solution it seems; their basic package is $20/month as opposed to $150 for RailsMachine and nearly $400 for EngineYard. I don't have that kind of money at the moment, especially since I'm currently an unemployed .NET developer (the dark side, I know) dabbling in Rails.

The basic SliceHost plan provides 256MB of RAM and 10GB of Storage; would this be enough to start out with? My application is not very data intensive; it is a collaborative event planner and task management system for small businesses. I have not worked with VPS in the past, only shared hosting, but I don't think shared hosting is going to cut it.

256 is pretty tight, you won't be running more than one or two mongrels with that (and you obviously won't be able to give much ram to mysql). For something low-key it's fine (i used to have one of them). Linode are in a similar sort of ballpark, but you get slightly more for your money. The big difference between someone like engineyard and something like slicehost is that you're basically on your own (I'm not saying that slicehost's support isn't good it just that its remit doesn't cover much beyond the basic 'provide a box & network connectivity). You will have to install/configure/manage everything, keep your eye ou for security updates etc... All they provide is the empty box. Slicehost do provide a lot of great howtos to get you up and running.

Fred

Wayne,

Considering that your app is not that data-intensive, you might be more inclined to go for the regular hosting providers like you mentioned, but Fred is right -- all you're going to get is a box and a few things here and there, maybe. How about you try out a free developer account at www.mor.ph -- we provide a way for you to easily deploy, deliver and manage a Rails app. Starter plan costs just $1/ day.

Cheers, Macel