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Is that really cheaper than to just use a VPS for $5/month which offers compute and storage and everything? The article says this about VPSs: You often en

by mg 2y ago

Is that really cheaper than to just use a VPS for $5/month which offers compute and storage and everything? The article says this about VPSs: You often end up paying for resources even when you're not using them. But how is that different with S3? They also do not store the data for free. And you can delete a VPS via API just like you can delete an S3 container.

earayu 2y ago
GitHub Actions is completely free, and you can always use free S3-compatible storage like Cloudflare R2, making the entire setup cost nothing. VPS has two main drawbacks: Many don't guarantee persistent disk storage It's not ideal for CI/CD scenarios where you need ephemeral databases for testing But you're right - if you need a simple, always-on database, a $5 VPS might be a good choice.
- GrygrFlzr 2y ago
  Wait, this is news to me - which VPS providers do not have persistent data storage? Are you thinking of Heroku-like deployments? I feel like every VPS provider I've encountered always listed storage as a feature?
  - earayu 2y ago
    I was thinking about EC2's default instance storage - it's ephemeral and gets wiped when you restart or stop the instance. Without paying for EBS volumes, EC2's storage is non-persistent by design.
    - hhh 2y ago
      The d variant machines you mean?
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    You can't rely on VPS disk - backups, data retention and recovery is all up to you in case of node failure. There are other much more expensive and much slower products (external networked volumes) that do offer guarantees, but that's additional charge.
    - jeltz 2y ago
      Most VPS providers offer a backup solution.
      - sigio 2y ago
        Yes, and you never use those, because if the VPS company fails, your backups are gone. So use the backup services of a second (and third) company if you value your data.
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        As I said, that's an additional charge.
    - justinclift 2y ago
      > backups Just to point out, if the data is important you'll want backups anyway. Even with S3. Just in case. :D
      - vbezhenar 2y ago
        Why would you want backups for S3? Were there data loss incidents?
        indigo945 2y ago
        Well, Amazon might fail as a company at some point and then all your data will be gone. Theoretically. Much more likely, though, is that you, or some sysadmin at your company, or even some user will accidentally hit the "delete" button on something important, and then without a backup, you can't get it back. Which is honestly the thing that people usually need their backups for, anyway. This is what most "data loss incidents" are: people just messing up and deleting things they shouldn't have. Wetware is much more prone to failure than hardware, after all.
        vbezhenar 2y ago
        There are ways to protect against delete or overwrite, for example by using versions.
- delusional 2y ago
  > GitHub Actions is completely free I mean kinda? It's free for public repositories, but free doesn't mean free for anything. The use of GitHub actions, like most thing in life, has terms of service[1]. This use-case arguably breaks the term "for example, don't use Actions [...] as part of a serverless application". If you start using this for demos, you'd probably also be breaking "You may only access and use GitHub Actions to develop and test your application(s)". It's up to GitHub if they choose to enforce any of these terms. I just want to point out that there are limits to "free". [1]: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-for-additional-products-and-features#actions https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...
  - earayu 2y ago
    yeah, you are right. > for example, don't use Actions as a content delivery network or as part of a serverless application, but a low benefit Action could be ok if it’s also low burden Just as the wesql article states, Use Cases is Not Recommended For: - Long-term database hosting or production workloads. - Maintaining an always-on public database endpoint. - Circumventing GitHub Actions usage policies.
- csomar 2y ago
  Github actions are not free, you get a bunch of free minutes. For the public repositories, you are usually queued too far if you are sending lots of actions.
klohto 2y ago
$5 a month gets you 500GB of storage on R2. Free tier of 10GB is more than enough for CI/CD.
west0n 2y ago
If you want to run a database on VPS with ssd disk, you'll need at least two replicas for data redundancy, which would cost about $10.
- delusional 2y ago
  The article scopes this as "for development, testing, demos, or short-lived workloads". Do you really need HA/replication for any of those workloads?
  - west0n 2y ago
    but when the VPS fails, you lost all your data
    - delusional 2y ago
      You probably need to define "fails" for me. I've never had a VPS straight up "fail" before, as in a hardware level, can't access the data, dead. You may temporarily lose access to the data, but I've always been able to recover said data.
    - d0100 2y ago
      VPS backups are $1 for the $5 1GB VPS

by mg 2y ago

earayu 2y ago

GitHub Actions is completely free, and you can always use free S3-compatible storage like Cloudflare R2, making the entire setup cost nothing. VPS has two main drawbacks: Many don't guarantee persistent disk storage It's not ideal for CI/CD scenarios where you need ephemeral databases for testing But you're right - if you need a simple, always-on database, a $5 VPS might be a good choice.

GrygrFlzr 2y ago
Wait, this is news to me - which VPS providers do not have persistent data storage? Are you thinking of Heroku-like deployments? I feel like every VPS provider I've encountered always listed storage as a feature?
- earayu 2y ago
  I was thinking about EC2's default instance storage - it's ephemeral and gets wiped when you restart or stop the instance. Without paying for EBS volumes, EC2's storage is non-persistent by design.
  - hhh 2y ago
    The d variant machines you mean?
- thrw42A8N 2y ago
  You can't rely on VPS disk - backups, data retention and recovery is all up to you in case of node failure. There are other much more expensive and much slower products (external networked volumes) that do offer guarantees, but that's additional charge.
  - jeltz 2y ago
    Most VPS providers offer a backup solution.
    - sigio 2y ago
      Yes, and you never use those, because if the VPS company fails, your backups are gone. So use the backup services of a second (and third) company if you value your data.
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      As I said, that's an additional charge.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    > backups Just to point out, if the data is important you'll want backups anyway. Even with S3. Just in case. :D
    - vbezhenar 2y ago
      Why would you want backups for S3? Were there data loss incidents?
      - indigo945 2y ago
        Well, Amazon might fail as a company at some point and then all your data will be gone. Theoretically. Much more likely, though, is that you, or some sysadmin at your company, or even some user will accidentally hit the "delete" button on something important, and then without a backup, you can't get it back. Which is honestly the thing that people usually need their backups for, anyway. This is what most "data loss incidents" are: people just messing up and deleting things they shouldn't have. Wetware is much more prone to failure than hardware, after all.
        vbezhenar 2y ago
        There are ways to protect against delete or overwrite, for example by using versions.
delusional 2y ago
> GitHub Actions is completely free I mean kinda? It's free for public repositories, but free doesn't mean free for anything. The use of GitHub actions, like most thing in life, has terms of service[1]. This use-case arguably breaks the term "for example, don't use Actions [...] as part of a serverless application". If you start using this for demos, you'd probably also be breaking "You may only access and use GitHub Actions to develop and test your application(s)". It's up to GitHub if they choose to enforce any of these terms. I just want to point out that there are limits to "free". [1]: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-for-additional-products-and-features#actions https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...
- earayu 2y ago
  yeah, you are right. > for example, don't use Actions as a content delivery network or as part of a serverless application, but a low benefit Action could be ok if it’s also low burden Just as the wesql article states, Use Cases is Not Recommended For: - Long-term database hosting or production workloads. - Maintaining an always-on public database endpoint. - Circumventing GitHub Actions usage policies.
csomar 2y ago
Github actions are not free, you get a bunch of free minutes. For the public repositories, you are usually queued too far if you are sending lots of actions.

klohto 2y ago

$5 a month gets you 500GB of storage on R2. Free tier of 10GB is more than enough for CI/CD.

west0n 2y ago

If you want to run a database on VPS with ssd disk, you'll need at least two replicas for data redundancy, which would cost about $10.

delusional 2y ago
The article scopes this as "for development, testing, demos, or short-lived workloads". Do you really need HA/replication for any of those workloads?
- west0n 2y ago
  but when the VPS fails, you lost all your data
  - delusional 2y ago
    You probably need to define "fails" for me. I've never had a VPS straight up "fail" before, as in a hardware level, can't access the data, dead. You may temporarily lose access to the data, but I've always been able to recover said data.
  - d0100 2y ago
    VPS backups are $1 for the $5 1GB VPS