HN Explorer

Ask HN: What is the easiest way to host a Rails app?

10 points by danramteke ↗ HN
Maybe I'm typing the wrong things into Google, but the easy way to host a Rails app is eluding me. I know how to set up capistrano, thin, nginx, Ubuntu, mysql, etc, but where can I find this set up out of the box? It's gotta be out there.

Suggestions? Thanks!

21 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 50.3 ms ] thread
qhoxie
This article gives a decent overview: http://www.aidanf.net/deploying-rails-on-a-clean-ubuntu-slic...

Aside from that, you can search for tutorials related to blank slate hosts like Slicehost and Linode - they tend to cover rails well.

danramteke
Slicehost.com does have some nice tutorials for just getting started. Is there a turnkey solution out there?
callmeed
Are you looking for something low-cost or more of a high-end managed service?

MediaTemple has RoR grid containers and other hosts support Rails now, but I don't know of a turnkey solution ... although Heroku looks interesting.

Seriously, if you get a slicehost slice w/ Ubuntu Hardy, Apache and mod_rails, you can get your app up in < 3 hours.

Plus, there's something to be said for getting on the server and learning how to do some things yourself.

danramteke
Looking for something with a low barrier to entry, but with room to grow. Something not unlike AWS, but totally tuned for Rails. I'm thinking about building such a solution if nothing else works out. For my personal use if nothing else.
qhoxie
Something to consider (not quite turnkey depending on how you look at it) is deprec. Quite a few people still swear by it:

http://www.deprec.org/

ph0rque
have you tried heroku.com?
danramteke
just signed up for an invite. Thanks!
jraines
Heroku is great.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the main drawbacks at this point are that your app can't send email, and you can't do cron stuff.

The free service is great, and I'll have my wallet out when they offer premium with those types of features.

mhartl
You can send email from a 'blessed' app (just ask them and it's likely they'll give you their blessing). I'm not sure about background jobs, but I imagine it's in the works.
utnick
setting up mod_rails on slicehost is pretty straightforward