My advice: Get a cheap vps (LowEndBox / DigitalOcean) and be prepared to break it a lot and re-install it a few times. It's part of the learning curve. Things

My advice: Get a cheap vps (LowEndBox / DigitalOcean) and be prepared to break it a lot and re-install it a few times. It's part of the learning curve. Things I'd focus on: 1. Use SSH keys to log in, disable password logging in (easy) 1.5 Understand users/groups, chmod, chown 2. Set up Nginx, how to config, set up LetsEncrypt (easy) 3. Have a play with Uncomplicated Firewall (UFW), don't lock yourself out of ssh ;) (medium) 4. Hook up Github Actions with your server and get some auto-deployments going. (medium/harder) Beyond that, you'll quickly realise the cloud is great but for the most part managing a few servers isn't that hard.