I used DigitalOcean for my food based web app. I would definitely recommend them. The skills to setup and maintain the machine are valuable to learn. I would

I used DigitalOcean for my food based web app. I would definitely recommend them. The skills to setup and maintain the machine are valuable to learn. I would recommend documenting everything as you may not remember everything you initially did. One example would be how to backup your database, or another how to upgrade your database when a security patch comes out. Some things I did that were helpful: Stick with long term support (LTS) versions of the linux you choose as this will minimize how often you have to upgrade things. If you can automate security patches, do so ( Debian and Ubuntu have this ) Setup something like fail2ban to help monitor and block intrusions. setup key less ssh access. put your web app behind a proxy like nginx and have it handle the https