Rails Hosting

rubyonrails-talk
1

This has probably been asked many many times but we are looking to host a non-profit small Rails 3 app, the budget is about $20-25/month. the number of concurrent expected users in the beginning is rather low. besides the rails app there might be also need to host other php web sites such as wordpress.

I think at this point the research gave us 3 candidates.

-Linode

-Slice Host

-HostingRails

Can anybody offer some input about this? We greatly appreciated.

2

for Rails hosting, give heroku a try.

if you want to host Rails and PHP, I recommend Linode. But you will need to administer the server yourself.

3

> This has probably been asked many many times but we are looking to host a > non-profit small Rails 3 app, the budget is about $20-25/month. the number > of concurrent expected users in the beginning is rather low. besides the > rails app there might be also need to host other php web sites such as > wordpress.

> I think at this point the research gave us 3 candidates. > -Linode > -Slice Host > -HostingRails

I can only say good things about Heroku for a low-cost/no-cost solution to Rails hosting. Great git integration, and has worked well for me over the past year.

4

I’m a big fan of Heroku as well.

Another option, although they aren’t specifically rails-oriented, is dreamhost.com

Pros -

  • Cheap – Unlimited domains (excluding registration) bandwidth, storage, shell accounts, email addresses, mailing lists, etc all for under $10/month. (They also have occasional first-year-free offers.)
  • Free hosting for 501(c)3 charities.
  • Very spiffy web-based control panel
  • A broad range of preloaded software and 1-click installs offered.
  • Rails available via Apache/Passenger. (NOT a 1-click install)
  • VERY reliable. (I know, I shouldn’t say that … tempting the gods and all that.) They are a fairly “grown up” company - 300K customers on 4K servers.
  • Free two week trial.

Cons -

  • Default configuration supports ruby 1.8.7 and rails 3.0.9 only.
  • No customer access to the system-wide error logs. i.e. silent failure on config/start-up errors. Once your process is up and running your logfiles will work. But if the error is early enough (e.g. syntax error in a config file) you have to contact tech support and ask them to look at the error output for you. So type carefully.
  • PostgreSQL not supported. (They say “maybe someday”.)
  • Mediocre system documentation.
  • Bare-bones tech support in general and for ruby/rails in particular. And if you stray from their ruby/rails defaults you are completely on your own.

So if you have a bunch of domains, not so much money, and are comfortable on the *nix command line, they are worth looking at.

But if you want to keep things simple, go with Heroku.

Dan Nachbar

5

I just wanted to say that I've been with linode for a while now. Yes you have to manage things yourself but that can be a bonus in many situations. They've recently added a very cheap load balancing system too.

In addition, their tech support is the best I have ever needed. I submitted a ticket a few days ago, had a reply within 4 minutes. The entire ticket was resolved within 15 minutes and I wasn't left waiting for a reply at any point. They really seem to know what they're talking about and take on board suggestions/feedback.