Ask HN: Good startup web hosting

8 points by cabrera ↗ HN
Hey guys,

I'm working on build a website and curious to who you prefer for web hosting. I'm not looking to spend much, but I obviously want good service. Who do you recommend?

12 comments

[ 49.9 ms ] story [ 1612 ms ] thread
AWS. Build on the free tier and then upgrade to small or larger as necessary.
You really should be specific about technologies and everyone will have their favourites but heroku is a good starting point and has a free tier.
http://hostrum.com/ if you care about security, daily off-continent backups, and active malware scans. Not the cheapest guy in town but worth every penny.

GoDaddy if you're like being upsold. :)

I can appreciate your desire to drive business to your company, as any of us would, but don't you think it would be prudent to add a disclaimer, or at minimum refer to yourself in the first person?
Ok, insert "I am " in front of "Not". That should do.
It really depends on many factors such as (a) the technology/stack you are using, (b) the purpose of your website, (c) how you expect it to grow over time, (d) your budget, (e) your users geographic location, etc...
If you're confident about managing your own server and installing your own software for it, DigitalOcean are superb.
I use AWS at work, have used Heroku in tutorials and quick hacks, and DigitalOcean for personal projects. If I wanted just basic web hosting for a personal site, the free AWS tier does the trick. If I had a startup with funding, I would probably use DigitalOcean or AWS. I think being able to know what's happening at the server and OS level is essential. Note: I am biased since I spent some time and effort to understand basic setups for servers, devops, and sysadmin.
Do don't give much details. Do you need this long term ? AWS free tier is free only for a year (I think) so what after that ?

I would suggest looking at Webfaction. It is a shared hosting provider, but can support lot more than "websites" People are running their business (web apps) from Webfaction. They are very cost effective. Support is AWESOME. But they don't have "free" tier. but there is a 60-day "free" trial.

Look into Arvixe.com - a lot of my friends stand by it