5 ms·
Sure, but there's a bit of apples and oranges here - for example, any modern internet-connected app would also need a server backend.
by johnday 8y ago
Sure, but there's a bit of apples and oranges here - for example, any modern internet-connected app would also need a server backend.
- wvenable 8y agoBut once we talking about that money, $100 a year is peanuts.
- johnday 8y agoTrue. It's also worth noting that a $5/mo VPS can get you surprisingly far with respect to well-designed websites and services.
- wvenable 8y agoYou shouldn't run a production environment on a single $5/mo VPS.
- johnday 8y agoIt depends on your speed, concurrent user capacity, and uptime requirements (among other things). I run two production servers off two separate $5/mo VPSs, one getting a few thousand hits a day. No issues whatsoever.
- wvenable 8y agoWhat happens if something catastrophic occurs?
- johnday 8y agoWhat do you mean by catastrophic? It's safe from the obvious things: * DB corruption / destruction: The database is backed up. * FS corruption / destruction: The production code is backed up with version control (obviously) and can be restored at the drop of a hat. * The server just randomly falls off the internet: It would take about 2 hours to get a new server up to the same point. What kind of problems could arise, that wouldn't equally affect any other kind of server provision?
- wvenable 8y agoHow frequently is that database backed up? How many hours of work are users going to lose? And you're going to wake up at 3:00am and take 2 hours to get a new server online? This is all fine for a service with a few thousand users that's not mission critical. But I assume the article is about building apps to be a real business not just a hobby. I run a few hobby sites under the same scenario as you but all my work sites have multiple servers to fail over to and replicated databases.
- johnday 8y agoThat all sounds very reasonable. Ours is a news website which publishes semi-frequently; so we'd probably lose about 5-10 articles on average. It's not just a hobby - it brings in more than a minimum job's worth per month at the moment and is growing fairly quickly, since we operate in a growing niche. Like I said - it's all about your requirements, and for us $5/mo is just fine.
- wvenable 8y agoAlso I just installed Daylio which is a cool little diary application. They have no web app, it's mobile app only. It backs up your data to Google Drive. It has no server component, no signup, etc. Admittedly there are limitations of not having a server backend but for a MVP that's another way to go.
- tracker1 8y agoAnd apparently no way to update from my desktop then.
- wvenable 8y agoExactly. No API either. So obviously it's not without it's downsides.
- jkchu 8y agoA native app with no server backend is the same as a web application with no server backend. In that case you really just need to put those static web files into an S3 bucket and route a domain to it. The cost is very low for this.
- wvenable 8y agoAthough localstorage exists, I'd be very hesitant to store anything important/permanent there. So your no server web app will be pretty limited.
- johnday 8y agoDaylio is good! I did it for about 6 months but I've tailed off recently. Simple apps can definitely get away without a remote backend, and for things like single-player games they can get away without any web presence at all. So yeah, there's definitely no one true solution.