Help me find the cheapest web hosting for my blog and podcast...
October 19, 2015 9:23 AM Subscribe
I run a WordPress blog, and the archives of a defunct podcast, hosting on Dreamhost. I'm up for renewal in two weeks, and I don't want to keep paying $120 a year for the service... not because I don't like Dreamhost, but because I'm cheap.
I'm using about 4GB of data right now, and my traffic is in the 10s of GBs, so bandwidth isn't a super-big concern. I'm also willing, if it saves money, to switch to a static blogging platform like Jekyll. I'm sure I can use that for the podcast, too.
If possible, I'd like to be able to use email through the new host, though I'm prepared to shell out for FastMail if my total will still be less than $120/yr.
The only thing off the table is GitHub Pages. I don't feel comfortable hosting a blog there, since it's not really what it's for. Seems tenuous.
So, whaddya got? Ideally, I'd like to cut the bill in half across the board.
I'm using about 4GB of data right now, and my traffic is in the 10s of GBs, so bandwidth isn't a super-big concern. I'm also willing, if it saves money, to switch to a static blogging platform like Jekyll. I'm sure I can use that for the podcast, too.
If possible, I'd like to be able to use email through the new host, though I'm prepared to shell out for FastMail if my total will still be less than $120/yr.
The only thing off the table is GitHub Pages. I don't feel comfortable hosting a blog there, since it's not really what it's for. Seems tenuous.
So, whaddya got? Ideally, I'd like to cut the bill in half across the board.
A Small Orange, which was previously recommended by many people on the green including me, was sold and now sucks. We have moved clients to Site Ground. Hosting solid, control panel spectacular. Should be 50% of your current cost or less, depending on your needs.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:34 AM on October 19, 2015
posted by DarlingBri at 9:34 AM on October 19, 2015
Look at nearlyfreespeech, the are a pay in advance for exactly what you use and for modest needs are very very cheap, think under $10 for a year -- for the right minimal site. Do the calculation from their site, looks to be well under $100 for your needs, less if you offload or compress unused content.
posted by sammyo at 9:59 AM on October 19, 2015
posted by sammyo at 9:59 AM on October 19, 2015
I just switched to Scaleway. 4 core ARM processor (Ubuntu and similar images available), 2G RAM, 50G SSD, sustained 200Mbps transfer rate. €2.99/month (less than US$3.50 at current exchange rates).
The networking setup is a little funky and just IPv4 right now. The CPUs are pretty slow, my benchmarking suggests they're anywhere from 2 to 10x slower than my Linode VM, but it's damned hard to beat the price. And we were serving web pages 20 years ago, so ya don't need that much power for it.
Static files help, I set up some caching because my Perl was taking some time to run, but I'm sold on it.
posted by straw at 10:01 AM on October 19, 2015
The networking setup is a little funky and just IPv4 right now. The CPUs are pretty slow, my benchmarking suggests they're anywhere from 2 to 10x slower than my Linode VM, but it's damned hard to beat the price. And we were serving web pages 20 years ago, so ya don't need that much power for it.
Static files help, I set up some caching because my Perl was taking some time to run, but I'm sold on it.
posted by straw at 10:01 AM on October 19, 2015
Nearlyfreespeech is great, as long as you don't want a one-click solution (and given you are prepared to convert your blog to Jekyll, I don't think you'd have a problem). It's very cheap and reliable. I host a couple of sites there.
posted by robcorr at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2015
posted by robcorr at 8:46 PM on October 19, 2015
Put the files on a free Dropbox account, get a cheap wordpress host. Done.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:45 AM on October 20, 2015
posted by blue_beetle at 5:45 AM on October 20, 2015
I know some people hate Godaddy, but I've been using them for years without issue. I pay about $60/year for hosting.
posted by gregr at 7:12 AM on October 20, 2015
posted by gregr at 7:12 AM on October 20, 2015
A Small Orange, which was previously recommended by many people on the green including me, was sold and now sucks
Must disagree, there: after more than a decade of suffering at Dreamhost, I've been at ASO for over a year and couldn't be happier.
That said, everybody's experience is different, and I'm paying quite a bit for a fairly grunty VPS, so I can't speak about their shared plans.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:33 PM on October 26, 2015
Must disagree, there: after more than a decade of suffering at Dreamhost, I've been at ASO for over a year and couldn't be happier.
That said, everybody's experience is different, and I'm paying quite a bit for a fairly grunty VPS, so I can't speak about their shared plans.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:33 PM on October 26, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Sequence at 9:31 AM on October 19, 2015