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I can't wait for PaaS prices to drop. I know they'll always be relatively expensive, but I'm primarily a dev (not ops) and I don't have the time nor desire to m

I can't wait for PaaS prices to drop. I know they'll always be relatively expensive, but I'm primarily a dev (not ops) and I don't have the time nor desire to manage my own servers securely. Heroku lately has seemed a tempting offer, assuming I can run my apps on it (Rust based), but at $7/m for little side projects it felt.. expensive for a no user side project. They can add up. A $5/m DO box can host quite a few apps in containers, by comparison. Perhaps Serverless would be a great playground for low/no traffic apps, but I've not gotten into serverless much.

tyingq 7y ago
Maybe openfaas, kubeless, or knative on DigitalOcean's managed K8S? Note that Linode has managed K8S in beta now, so there's another cheap K8S option.
- Hamuko 7y ago
  Isn't that even more expensive? DO advertises it as "as little as $10 per month".
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Ah, I had assumed you could run one node.
    - OJFord 7y ago
      If it's like AWS' equivalent, you can, but the cost is more than that because you're paying for a managed control plane.
      - tyingq 7y ago
        I had assumed it was like Linode: "Linode Kubernetes Pricing LKE pricing includes only the resources you consume – Linodes, NodeBalancers, and Volumes. Your cluster’s master services are free of charge." So whenever they are out of their beta, you should be able to run a $5/month single node K8S "cluster".
- erulabs 7y ago
  If you’re interested - Im building a starting-at-free Kubernetes hosting service, out of YCombinator S19! - https://kubesail.com https://kubesail.com
rcarmo 7y ago
If you feel like contributing Rust support to https://github.com/piku https://github.com/piku, it would be great. ;)
fastball 7y ago
Have you tried running Dokku[0] on a VPS? [0] https://github.com/dokku/dokku https://github.com/dokku/dokku
- wooly_bully 7y ago
  Seconding this. Big fan of Dokku on a DO droplet as an inexpensive way to make applications.
  - MuffinFlavored 7y ago
    I feel like setting up Docker + Terraform might be easier? Postgres + Redis + containerized app with little effort.
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  No, but that's mainly because I still have to manage the server running Dokku I believe? edit: For context what I was already using was manual docker on a DO box. While I recognized that Dokku would make it more seamless and easier, my issue was managing and securing the DO VM itself. I didn't see how Dokku would help that scenario
  - itake 7y ago
    yep. Dokku is not as simple as heroku.
    - benbristow 7y ago
      It's definitely not as simple as you have to maintain the server yourself. But being able to run multiple applications/containers on a server for the price of one dyno really makes up for it for personal projects! If I were working on a project with a corporate budget then using Heroku or a different style of architecture like serverless would be a no-brainer
  - ivoecpereira 7y ago
    I would suggest reading about Ansible and working on an initial collection of Ansible playbooks that might help on that. Check out https://www.thecloud.coach/ansible-crash-course https://www.thecloud.coach/ansible-crash-course. Of course nothing beats a dedicated devops but some playbooks regarding main security compliances might do a great job. Anyone correct me if I am wrong but I am seeing it as a good base practice for these cases.
thesandlord 7y ago
Give Google Cloud Run a try. Can run any Docker container, and billing is per request. It is basically a fully managed knative. https://cloud.google.com/run https://cloud.google.com/run My side projects all run for free. (I work for Google Cloud)
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  That.. is really impressive! Had no idea about this, thanks! For a well rounded review, can you or anyone comment on similar offerings with competitors? I was not familiar with per-request containers, but it sounds like exactly what I wanted. Thoughts?
  - arcticfox 7y ago
    I've been trying every Docker platform for years (Joyrnt Triton, Tutum, k8s on various platforms)... Cloud Run is by far my favorite
    - AtroxDev 7y ago
      I fully agree with this. I'm using Cloud Run since the day it got into beta and never been happier. It beats all the other platforms (for docker) IMO.
      - ivoecpereira 7y ago
        Out of curiosity, what are you using for your databases?
        drewnick 7y ago
        Not OP but I can setup DB of choice on an instance or group of instances and access directly from the Cloud Run containers. Our particular main stack is on MongoDB 3.4 so we deployed Atlas on the VPC and the containers access it just fine.
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
I do CapRover + FaaS on the small $5 droplet on Linode. I run a lot of random stuff out of it, with the only change from me being increasing swap from 512MB to 2GB (it's all SSD backed anyways).
iagovar 7y ago
Maybe scalingo.com or fortrabbit.com for php?
vidar 7y ago
render.com is a really strong PaaS, quite recent but showing great promise.
jwr 7y ago
I don't see PaaS as a realistic alternative except for the simplest of apps. One always eventually needs to tweak the web server to get things like websockets, brotli compression, fast serving of versioned immutable files, or something else. Or run several servers with vpncloud.rs between them. It's not price that is a problem, it's the lack of flexibility.
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  That may be true for some, but it's not true for me - currently. Ie, if I could get a DB/FS + PaaS for $5/m I'd use it in a heartbeat. If I run into a wall where I need to manually tweak some fine detail, I can always fall back to normal deployments, right? PaaS in concept fits exactly what many of us seek. Deploying apps without managing ops. Just because it's not infinitely powerful doesn't mean it's a reason no one would use a PaaS. PaaS fits a very real use case. In my somewhat edge case though, hobby/side projects, I can't pay much for them. So I manage the ops myself currently because I can save money, but if Heroku was just a bit more cheap I'd use them.

tyingq 7y ago

Maybe openfaas, kubeless, or knative on DigitalOcean's managed K8S? Note that Linode has managed K8S in beta now, so there's another cheap K8S option.

Hamuko 7y ago
Isn't that even more expensive? DO advertises it as "as little as $10 per month".
- tyingq 7y ago
  Ah, I had assumed you could run one node.
  - OJFord 7y ago
    If it's like AWS' equivalent, you can, but the cost is more than that because you're paying for a managed control plane.
    - tyingq 7y ago
      I had assumed it was like Linode: "Linode Kubernetes Pricing LKE pricing includes only the resources you consume – Linodes, NodeBalancers, and Volumes. Your cluster’s master services are free of charge." So whenever they are out of their beta, you should be able to run a $5/month single node K8S "cluster".
erulabs 7y ago
If you’re interested - Im building a starting-at-free Kubernetes hosting service, out of YCombinator S19! - https://kubesail.com https://kubesail.com

rcarmo 7y ago

If you feel like contributing Rust support to https://github.com/piku https://github.com/piku, it would be great. ;)

fastball 7y ago

Have you tried running Dokku[0] on a VPS? [0] https://github.com/dokku/dokku https://github.com/dokku/dokku

wooly_bully 7y ago
Seconding this. Big fan of Dokku on a DO droplet as an inexpensive way to make applications.
- MuffinFlavored 7y ago
  I feel like setting up Docker + Terraform might be easier? Postgres + Redis + containerized app with little effort.
asdkhadsj 7y ago
No, but that's mainly because I still have to manage the server running Dokku I believe? edit: For context what I was already using was manual docker on a DO box. While I recognized that Dokku would make it more seamless and easier, my issue was managing and securing the DO VM itself. I didn't see how Dokku would help that scenario
- itake 7y ago
  yep. Dokku is not as simple as heroku.
  - benbristow 7y ago
    It's definitely not as simple as you have to maintain the server yourself. But being able to run multiple applications/containers on a server for the price of one dyno really makes up for it for personal projects! If I were working on a project with a corporate budget then using Heroku or a different style of architecture like serverless would be a no-brainer
- ivoecpereira 7y ago
  I would suggest reading about Ansible and working on an initial collection of Ansible playbooks that might help on that. Check out https://www.thecloud.coach/ansible-crash-course https://www.thecloud.coach/ansible-crash-course. Of course nothing beats a dedicated devops but some playbooks regarding main security compliances might do a great job. Anyone correct me if I am wrong but I am seeing it as a good base practice for these cases.

thesandlord 7y ago

Give Google Cloud Run a try. Can run any Docker container, and billing is per request. It is basically a fully managed knative. https://cloud.google.com/run https://cloud.google.com/run My side projects all run for free. (I work for Google Cloud)

asdkhadsj 7y ago
That.. is really impressive! Had no idea about this, thanks! For a well rounded review, can you or anyone comment on similar offerings with competitors? I was not familiar with per-request containers, but it sounds like exactly what I wanted. Thoughts?
- arcticfox 7y ago
  I've been trying every Docker platform for years (Joyrnt Triton, Tutum, k8s on various platforms)... Cloud Run is by far my favorite
  - AtroxDev 7y ago
    I fully agree with this. I'm using Cloud Run since the day it got into beta and never been happier. It beats all the other platforms (for docker) IMO.
    - ivoecpereira 7y ago
      Out of curiosity, what are you using for your databases?
      - drewnick 7y ago
        Not OP but I can setup DB of choice on an instance or group of instances and access directly from the Cloud Run containers. Our particular main stack is on MongoDB 3.4 so we deployed Atlas on the VPC and the containers access it just fine.

WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago

I do CapRover + FaaS on the small $5 droplet on Linode. I run a lot of random stuff out of it, with the only change from me being increasing swap from 512MB to 2GB (it's all SSD backed anyways).

iagovar 7y ago

Maybe scalingo.com or fortrabbit.com for php?

vidar 7y ago

render.com is a really strong PaaS, quite recent but showing great promise.

jwr 7y ago

I don't see PaaS as a realistic alternative except for the simplest of apps. One always eventually needs to tweak the web server to get things like websockets, brotli compression, fast serving of versioned immutable files, or something else. Or run several servers with vpncloud.rs between them. It's not price that is a problem, it's the lack of flexibility.

asdkhadsj 7y ago
That may be true for some, but it's not true for me - currently. Ie, if I could get a DB/FS + PaaS for $5/m I'd use it in a heartbeat. If I run into a wall where I need to manually tweak some fine detail, I can always fall back to normal deployments, right? PaaS in concept fits exactly what many of us seek. Deploying apps without managing ops. Just because it's not infinitely powerful doesn't mean it's a reason no one would use a PaaS. PaaS fits a very real use case. In my somewhat edge case though, hobby/side projects, I can't pay much for them. So I manage the ops myself currently because I can save money, but if Heroku was just a bit more cheap I'd use them.