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Ask HN: How/where should I host my personal site?

6 points by dajomu ↗ HN
I want to set up a personal site, with a blog and a way to host an online cv + some of my projects, etc.. I'd like to host it myself, but I'm unsure of the best service to use. I live in the UK (if that matters), I've just started a career as a web developer about a year ago. I'd like to host it as cheaply as possible, I'm also not averse to buying a domain name and hosting separately. I also don't mind what language/platform to use (I'm happy to learn anything). Do you guys have any suggestions?

27 comments

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rsamvit
If its going to be a static site, host it on S3 for pennies. I'm also a fan of Jekyll
beat
Buy a domain, for sure. You don't want to make your credibility vulnerable to the fate of your underlying platform, whether that's to go under, or just to become uncool.
dajomu
Thanks, this was exactly what I was thinking about. I took the plunge just now and registered dajomu.com for a couple of years. Now I have to build something!
patrickk
Scriptogram (http://scriptogr.am/) might suit your needs. Free web hosting on Dropbox. Very easy to use and setup. Perfect for blogging with a few static pages for your CV, links to Github etc.

Make sure you buy a proper domain, e.g. yourName.me. Check out http://leandomainsearch.com/ for domain ideas.

There's a list of other Dropbox website hosting services here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6098616

Also: http://lifehacker.com/5534456/five-best-personal-landing-pag...

doubledub
That lifehacker link should save a ton of time for "dajomu". If Wordpress is preferred, Ryan Sullivan wrote a quick blip about best hosting. Search for "Performance of 7 Top WordPress Hosting Companies Compared".
dajomu
I'm tempted not to go for wordpress, as that happens to be about 50% of the work that I do at the moment and I'm looking to learn something new. I was thinking of something in either ruby, python or node. I'm unsure which one to choose (Though Ruby seems to be the flavour of the month it seems like node and python will have more varied applications if I want to expand my career).
andrew_gardener
Try using:

Hosting - github pages for free Static hosting for personal website http://pages.github.com/

Blog: Jekyll - creates static websites with blogging capabilities so it works well with github pages. You can also add static pages for cv, etc. http://jekyllrb.com/

Domain name: there are many options out there. use whatever you think best (I use namecheap and they're decent so far http://www.namecheap.com/)

joeld42
I'll second the namecheap recommendation. I've used it for registration and hosting for setting up a few sites for friends and I've always had a good experience with them. They offer hosting as well as domain name registration.
dajomu
I was halfway through buying from namecheap, when I kind of felt odd about giving all of my details over to an American company. I know it's probably pretty biased of me, but after everything that's happened recently I thought I might have some tiny smidgen of legal protection if I went with a British company. I'm not an American citizen, so I don't feel like I would have any rights if there ever was a problem with my domain. It's not that I think I'm going to do anything that would warrant shutting down my domain name, but it's one of those things that just makes you think twice. p.s. I'm well aware how terrible my own country's surveillance methods are, but at least I'm considered to be a citizen here.
andrew_gardener
That's a good point I suppose. I'm Canadian so I'm in the same boat as you. I guess I'm not as worried since they (NSA) already have all my information from everything else I do online (one of the bad parts about being in Canada is that almost all connections passes through the states at some point).

... And now I've just depressed myself over the state of the internet

Donito
Heroku's free plan is a good option, but it does require some knowledge of git/one of their supported framework. Good learning regardless.
dajomu
I just signed up for a Heroku free account, so I may well give this a go.... I'd like to do some experimentation. I want to pick the most fun/difficult way to do this if I can.
elclanrs
If you want a good challenge, get a private VPS for $5/month and set everything up yourself: SSH, Apache, users, permissions, Git repo, etc...
dajomu
That's bloody tempting, can I do that through Heroku?
elclanrs
I don't think so. Heroku is a PaaS (Platform as a Service). You can connect with SSH but everything is mostly set-up for you already but I don't have Heroku so I'm not sure. A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is just a remote computer typically with a bare Linux installation, and you build up from there and install what you need, Ruby, Node, PHP... Check https://www.digitalocean.com/, they're pretty popular.
cdevroe
Since you're just getting started as a web developer I think the suggestion to try out GitHub Pages, Jekyll, and setting up your own domain name and perhaps even hosting your own site on your own hand-built platform would really teach you what you need to know to do your job well. Even if all of those parts of the job won't be what you do day-to-day just knowing what is involved can help you communicate with any team you may work with in the future.

As an aside, I run a hosted-CMS called Barley that allows you to use just use HTML, CSS, and JS to run and host your site. It would not teach you as much about your new career as it would if you use your own host, your own platform, etc. but it might be something fun to poke at. It comes with a 30 day free trial and includes unlimited storage, content edits, dropbox syncing, and more but since you're just starting out if you'd like 1 personal site for free for life send me an email http://plainmade.com/company -- Barley is here: http://getbarley.com

dajomu
Wow, thank you! Someone that I know has recommended Jekyl, but I didn't really get why it was so great. I'll have a second look at it though. I'll have to really think about what I want to use. I develop full stack at the moment (well, from configuring servers/backend development all the way to css/js/html) so I'm looking for something that might develop my range of skills. I'll check out barley and get back to you about that (when it isnt 2:30am). Thanks again for the offer!
mike-cardwell
Get a $5/month VPS from Digital Ocean, learn how to configure and administer Apache or Nginx or both. Write a website using PHP. That seems to be where most of the jobs/money is here in the UK atm.

If you do all that, you can sell yourself as a sysadmin/developer. You can get a full time job. You can contract on the side, or full time. There's enough work out there in the UK if you have these skills.

dajomu
Hi, thanks for the advice. I've been working at a web development company for about a year (having had very little experience beforehand). I've mainly been working on sites in php and .net, though I'd really like to learn something that will contribute to my future career options and allow me to expand my portfolio. It seems like everyone on hacker news loves python, ruby or node, so I'd like to have a go at a larger project with one of them, I'm just being indecisive with hosting (I also have about zero cash, so the cheapest hosting would be preferable).
meerita
With such servers you can configure php or whatever you want really easily. Then you can backup all and rollback if you screw it.
lifeisstillgood
I honestly would not touch php. (not flame bait)

Yes, host your own, it does not matter what, but make it your own. Write your own CMS, at least that way you see why its worth not doing it again. You will end up teaching yourself basic SEO, sensible deployment and backup processes.

Its well worth the effort.

aminbandali
If you don't necessate to use WordPress and want to try something cool, I'd suggest Octopress (http://octopress.org/) + github pages to setup a static blog. There are lots of nice themes around for it as well. You can add a domain by simply creating a CNAME file with the domain adress or you can tie it to a subdomain on your domain and use the main domain for your host (if you plan to get).
ulisesrmzroche
I'd go the github pages route. It's free and you can get a little branding boost and easy linkage by using username.github.io
rk0567
use jekyll or middleman and host it on a VPS (Digital Ocean is a good choice).
devb0x
looking at your comments you also want to play. so you need to get shared hosting that allows python or a vps where you can do what you want.
dannnnnnny
Totally!

Got any good/cheap/suggestions?