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Ask HN: Cheap options for simple landing page?

48 points by unnecessary ↗ HN
Can anyone recommend cheap and simple SAAS options for a landing page?

I'd like visitors to be able to enter an email address for product availability updates.

I would also like to host it on a custom domain.

43 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 88.4 ms ] thread
maxmcd
Github pages is nice, night be hard to set up email entry for a less-technical user. Most of the non-technical friends I have enjoy using Unbounce.
foopod
I would second Github pages, you can set up a custom domain. The only issue is trying to set up ssl nicely, but you might not even need that. Use a simple template like the one that http://launchaco.com/build/ provides. Then set up something like mailchimp or maybe FormSpree for a contact form.

I recently did something just like this for my new site http://druidjono.com/ using a Launchaco template (no affiliation).

rwieruch
If you want to have more technical control over your page, I can recommend Hugo [1] - a static website generator (free). You don't have to be into HTML/CSS, because they have a handful of themes [2] you can choose from. There exists a technical cheatsheet [3] how you could set it up with GitHub Pages (free) or DigitalOcean. There could be a Hugo theme which already uses e.g. MailChimp [4] as E-Mail service.

[1] https://gohugo.io/ [2] http://themes.gohugo.io/ [3] http://www.robinwieruch.de/own-website-in-five-days/ [4] https://mailchimp.com/

rkv
Maybe:

- $5 DigitalOcean droplet

- WordPress

- WordPress theme[1]

- WP Subscribe plugin[2]

1. https://justfreethemes.com/themes/landing-page/

2. https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-subscribe

a_lifters_life
This is what I do, may not be the cheapest, but it gives you the best value IMO.
RUG3Y
The $5 droplet doesn't have enough resources to install Wordpress, last time I checked. Ghost works on the $5 droplet though, that's what I'm using. I like Ghost better anyway.
weeefun
I think if you just want to run a WordPress installation, you don't need a DigitalOcean droplet. There are lots of cheaper web hosting alternatives to do that and they often also provide something like a one-click installation. For Germans, this is a really cheap option: https://wint.global 0,55 €/month
mjankowski
and how do you keep those sites malware and spam free? I have ran into problems getting my site hacked (I suspect worms) and I don't even know how it happened or how to protect my site from it happeining again
rkv
Regarding spam, if you are experiencing DDOS then CloudFlare (or alike) can be used. If you are referring to comment spam on the WordPress blog there are plugins to mitigate this[1][2].

For brute force login attacks, use recaptcha[3] or TFA[4].

Security by obscurity is not always welcomed, but I tend to change my WordPress login URL's from '/wp-admin` and never use 'admin' or 'root' as a username.

There is nothing you can do about WordPress remote execution bug's or worm attacks. If your version is affected you are going to have a bad time. Just remember to keep your WordPress installation up to date and jail your WordPress files and web processes as a regular user (ex: www-data) and database credentials as a non-root user.

Regular backups. It is fairly easy to restore a WordPress site from a backup if the site ever is hacked.

I apologize if I didn't answer your question. This is a not an easy problem and WordPress is one of the most targeted web platforms out there.

1. https://wordpress.org/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/

2. https://akismet.com/

3. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-login-recaptcha/

4. https://wordpress.org/plugins/wpclef

ryptophan
Host frontend on s3, use route53 to connect domain, connect form to AWS lambda function. Should be less than $2 a month.
vram22
This is for how much bandwidth usage per month?
Raed667
For static content : Github Pages [Free]

For email : Mailchimp [Free tier]

Edit : A quick Google search, showed that someone was nice enough to make a working example http://landing.adrienjoly.com/

cestith
My recommendations currently for this sort of thing come down to two.:

Amazon Lightsail https://amazonlightsail.com/

Nearly Free Speech https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/

There's also the s3 / Route53 / AWS Lambda solution mentioned by "ryptophan" which is inexpensive but a bit more complex.

There's also Google Cloud Platform https://cloud.google.com/products/ which could, especially via https://console.cloud.google.com/launcher give you for example click-to-launch phpList or LetsChat up through SuiteCRM or Mautic and on to Redis, Cassandra, or a whole OS.

There's really more than one axis of "simple". Do you want to manage a single app? Do you want a simple way to launch a whole cluster of servers? Do you want a full OS VPS with a single app on it to start?

shubhamjain
I have always been parsimonious when it comes to digital things. Being good with tech is one good reason for this. But lately, I have come to realise that no matter how technically-able I am, doing something programmatically expends mental resources that could have been used elsewhere. Even when I consider myself decent with HTML/CSS, I would near more than a day to perfect a website, resolving quirky CSS bugs, trying to find good stock images, perfecting positioning, margins and what not.

Considering that LeadPages would only cost $25 / month, even if my landing page runs for three months, $75 is a meagre expense for the hours it'll save me in building and mantaining a simple web page, and not to say about the excellent integrations it has. More often than not, I have counted a lot on my technical skills only to repent in wasted hours and effort.

alopes50
I use instapage.com. They are the least expensive out of the landing page builder solutions with a/b testing out there.

Wix is a way cheaper option.

The cheapest option is probably wordpress. You can buy landing page theme for wordpress on themeforest.net.

Good luck.

datapolitical
Instapage is excellent. Fast, reliable, high quality, easy to cancel when you move on.

It's worth the extra few bucks for the time you'll save.

jtcond13
Wufoo is a good way to set up web forms quickly.
sharemywin
I've used unbounce before. currently use wufoo.com for my form designer. Currently, I host my own sites on a virtual server. I have a reseller account with http://webecs.com/ and I have about 10 domains I work with at a time. kill the least productive.
GFischer
I've used Unbounce before too (and it was a good experience). I host things in Azure myself now, but Unbounce has a lot more features.

Squarespace looks nice too ( https://www.squarespace.com/ ). There's an YC backed company that does something of the sort too.

dhruvkar
You can setup a landing page on Gitlab Pages with a custom domain and email capture form (and ssl, if you want) for free.

Example: http://albanybusiness.org (all on gitlab pages with a capture form using mailerlite)

Here's how to do the setup:

Official Tutorial: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/pages/README.html#add-a-custom-do...

My writeup with insights, geared towards beginners: https://medium.automizzen.com/gitlab-pages-create-host-a-sta...

I use Hugo with one of the pre-made themes. I've done this with ~7-8 sites now.

Edit: readability

tedmiston
I noticed you're not using SSL with the custom domain on GitLab pages. Is there some restriction or complications with doing so?
dhruvkar
It's a little cumbersome to setup with Gitlab Pages with LetsEncrypt TLS. I was using a homegrown static site generator before switching to Hugo, so it took a few trial and errors to set it up correctly each time. The only real issue is since we can't access the Gitlab Pages server, we can't do any redirects http -> https.

My sites https://dhruvkar.com and https://automizzen.com are both hosted on Gitlab Pages and using LetsEncrypt TLS. I just didn't bother for the one mentioned above. I use a javascript http->https redirect currently, but that's not ideal.

atbentley
What do the various static site hosts offer in terms of analytics?

I can always add in some javascript analytics, but with the prevalence of ad-blockers and tracker-blockers it would be nice to have to some analytics coming from server logs to help create a complete picture.

cm2012
Instapage is awesome. I made djtresistance.com with it in a few minutes.
stamourd
https://www.openshift.com has a free tier
tedmiston
That seems like a generous free plan [1]. Have you noticed any gotchas?

[1]: https://www.openshift.com/pricing/plan-comparison.html

stamourd
I haven't used it for anything in production yet.

After 24 hours of inactivity it'll idle down, the next load after that is slow. The price tier up prevents the idle down, cost $0/month but requires a credit card number (?). I haven't tried it.

vram22
What language did you use it with (if you built a web app rather than a static site)?
tedmiston
Not sure exactly what you mean when you say "SAAS options for a landing page", but GitHub Pages has been great for me running a few simple static sites under custom domains.