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Vince Varga
15,338 PointsHosted servers for big sites
So let's assume I would like to create a social network with over ~10 000 users who can upload photos, comments, and even videos to my hypothetical social site using web app or mobile app. I wonder when is it better to set up your own server rather then use a hosted server. What is your opinion about the cloud services for startups hosted by Amazon or Google. Could you tell me what are the factors that I should take into consideration?
3 Answers
James Barnett
39,199 PointsMost startups are hosted on AWS. Using AWS or a tradition VPS are both better options than purchasing hardware because of the ability to scale.
Davide Pugliese
4,091 PointsWell, in my experience we can summarize the global picture like this:
1) Traditional WEB hosting services - they run PHP, MySQL, Apache but you are mostly bound to those components and their versions until the hosting provider makes an upgrade. Usually the clients are also provided some e-mail services.
2) VPS - they are divided in 2 subcategories according to whether or not they have some kind of panels to administrate them without any deep knowledge on Unix like operating systems. On a VPS you can decide the operating system, and you have to install the components on your own or if they provide a web interface like cPanel everything will be ready in a matter of minutes.
In case you decided to go with a VPS provider that does not offer such panels, but it is cheaper, fortunately there are also some administration panels that are open source, provided free of charge, and can be installed to accomplish the same tasks and allow saving some bucks (even because once you are done, you can back up all the config files so that in case you need those again you will not have to manually modify them again with the exception of the domain name and other minor things).
With VPS you have complete control over your system, this way if tomorrow you want to start using Ruby on Rails, you will just need to read the documentation provided by Ubuntu or Debian or CentOS community, etc. and install and configure the relative packages.
I hope this will be useful for other students as well.
Regards, Davide
William Eccles
4,341 PointsTreehouse subscribers get 25% off for life with Web hosting, VPS and dedicated servers from Raid Host - I believe the promo code is still TREEHOUSE as per this comment https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/cannot-use-webhostforstudentscom-alternative
Vince Varga
15,338 PointsVince Varga
15,338 PointsThank you for your help! I read a bit more about the topic and I have some other questions. What are the main advantages of AWS over a traditional hosting service provider? I use a traditional provider to webhost my personal site (100$/year, I can run PHP, have MySQL, unlimited storage and could have SSL) and it seems that it could fit my needs. They also offer VPS for 100 USD a month. And what is your opinion about Google Cloud Storage VS Amazon Web Services? As I saw they are pretty similar. Or should I use Google App Engine which is a PaaS instead of a IaaS? I guess it would make things easier. Thank you again!