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Ask HN: What do you look for in a static web host?

5 points by 12s12m ↗ HN
I am building a simple web host backed by Dropbox for file sync. I'd love to hear your ideas on what you guys look for in a web host. Really appreciate your feedback.

What are the things you specifically look for in a web host?

  1. Price
  2. Ease of use
  3. Performance
  4. Reliability
  5. Something else.

3 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 17.4 ms ] thread
stevekemp
Name-recognition: I'm sure there are a bunch of quality web-hosts, but if I've never heard of you, or you're new, I'm not going to use you. Hosting companies, especially small ones, routinely go out of business.

For hosting reliability and availability are the main requirements. If you're a company I've heard of I'll have an idea of how good you are. Most of the time people focus on price, via sites like "low-end-box" and the companies listed there are often just circling the drain before they go out of business.

In short: be sustainable, and demonstrate availability & reliability.

After all your competitors are things like Amazon's S3 (cheap, reliable), GitHub pages (free), and similar.

12s12m
Thank you, this is very helpful.

I see that you have a SaaS targeted at devs https://dns-api.com/ . It is a nice concept. How were you able to drive customers to this? Any strategies that worked / didn't work? Would love to hear your story.

stevekemp
I used to run a free Dynamic DNS site, which lured users to the more complex site. But I suspect a real reply would be a little off-topic and distracting to your current post.