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Ask HN: justifying hosting costs for hobby sites

4 points by djb_hackernews ↗ HN
I've got a webapp idea in mind, but I don't see any revenue potential. But as an unemployed dev I do see resume potential. The thing is I can't seem to justify the hosting costs. My best guess is it would be about $100/mo. But, I see on HN a lot of people whipping up simple webapps and sometimes complex webapps with out any revenue being generated, and just running it for the fun of it. So how do people justify expenses similar to that that don't justify the ends? A line must be drawn, no matter how much fun it is. Especially since as I said, I am unemployed.

10 comments

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andreshb
To get at least a resume-building prototype going I don't see why you would need to pay $100/mo in hosting.

Now, if you begin to grow such traffic that you need to shell out $100/mo in hosting, then maybe you have something interesting going that you can probably find a way to make some revenue from it (or at least $100/mo)

There is always the option of using S3 or App Engine, but it really depends on your app. So, if your goal is Resume Building, at least start with cheaper hosting and build a prototype.

I use a VPS that costs me $49/mo and I use that for hosting any prototypes or early projects.

Batsu
Any specific reasons why you think it would be $100/mo?
aneesh
"But, I see on HN a lot of people whipping up simple webapps and sometimes complex webapps with out any revenue being generated, and just running it for the fun of it"

I really don't think most of the hobby projects are paying anywhere near $100/mo for hosting. Is there something specific about your project that would need a $100/mo webhost?

carbon8
appengine is free, and you can get a low end VPS for $6-$20/mo from prgmr, slicehost or linode, and you can use even a low end VPS for multiple low-traffic sites. It does not cost $100/mo for a hobby site.
ido
I pay about $20/month at SliceHost and never needed more than the cheapest slice.
lsc
you need more SysAdmin friends.

seriously, almost every real SysAdmin has a server in a datacenter somewhere, roaring away and burning through power, often doing little more than personal email, spamfiltering, and personal website/filesharing. Usually they love giving friends free hosting for little personal projects, as that justifies the existence of that co-located box that allows the SysAdmin to keep his or her skills up to date. You know how open source programmers are proud when other people use code they provide? SysAdmins feel similarly when we get to host/support something cool.

I mean, if you were employed, I'd say to go buy a VPS (unless your idea involves streaming movies or, ah, 'adult content,' there is no reason why your hosting bill needs to be more than $20/month. Less if you are willing to deal with a underpowered server, or one of the 'up and coming' providers.)

bavcyc
Of the $20/month sites, any recommendations for RoR host?
djb_hackernews
I estimated $100 because it is sort of a niche filehost that also has an application that would be spidering small parts of the internet to find content. I can see my low traffic site burning through 500GB/mo in bandwidth which would be about $100 at slicehost.
philc
Also consider Heroku if it's a ruby webapp you're building. It's free until you need more resources, and is zero-fuss to get something deployed and set up.