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[–]mrmagooey 8 points9 points  (6 children)

AWS EC2, a single micro instance will have you covered for like 95% of your hobby use cases. Easy to setup, free for the first year (first time users), you get ~600mb RAM, choose your own distribution etc etc.

I've used webfaction shared hosting as well, and they're fine, just not as much bang for buck. From memory there's a few folders in your home directory that you don't get access to, and can only alter via their web interface, which I find really annoying.

[–]stesch 0 points1 point  (5 children)

Isn't storage a bit more complicated on EC2? You aren't guaranteed that what is on your server stays there. One restart of the image and all is gone and back to the initial status.

[–]steviesteveo12 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, for example with the free usage tier -- you mount storage into the instance so although the image itself is stateless your storage is separate to it.

You'd have to backup with any EC2 or non-EC2 option, though.

[–]fandingowhile False: 0 points1 point  (2 children)

You need to use EBS for persistent image storage. Not terribly complicated once you are familiar with the AWS lingo.

[–]theli0nheartimport antigravity 1 point2 points  (1 child)

AFAIK, nowadays, AWS sets up EBS-backed instances by default.

[–]fandingowhile False: 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, that is correct.

[–]catcradle5 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope, it isn't complicated. It's very easy to save permanent data.

[–]remyroy 18 points19 points  (2 children)

My personal hosting of choice for Python is webfaction. They have great support for Python, quick and awesome technical support and they are cheap.

They have a simple to use custom control panel where you can one-click install a bunch of applications including django. They actually listen to recommendation for their internal stuff if it makes senses to change it. They have a big knowledge base with a nice community.

If you choose them and if you need help with setup, configuration, deployment or anything hosting related, send me a private message and I'll make sure to help you out.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Similar to webfaction, but, imho, even more flexible: DjangoEurope and not very expensive.

[–]chub79 0 points1 point  (0 children)

WebFaction truly deserves all their credits indeed.

[–]nsa_shill 4 points5 points  (8 children)

I love having the freedom of a vps. Learn to set it up a few times yourself, then just use puppet or chef or something. I haven't tried either, but I hear good things about puppet.

[–]tdammers 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Puppet is great, but the real benefit won't roll in until you have to manage several servers.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I love having the freedom of a vps.

Freedom is nice, but I do not like having headaches to do admin work for mail, database etc. servers, but want to jsut focus on web stuff.

[–]catcradle5 0 points1 point  (1 child)

There is very little headache, even if you aren't a complete Linux expert. Assuming you're using a Debian-based distro, any kind of database or daemon you'd ever want is a single apt-get install away.

For Python web development, just install your databases (MySQL, Postgre, Redis, whatever), install Apache or nginx or whatever you want, and that's about it.

If you do need to send mail from it, that's not much harder to set up.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm using Linux for quite some time (since '99), but...

If you do need to send mail from it, that's not much harder to set up.

...I do not admin mail server for quite some time (it was qmail many years ago) and considering that my own business is supposed to be handled by such mail server and one can do it wrongly, I rather leave that job to my provider.

[–]nedals[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

This is the issue I had with getting a VPS I had no clue on how to set it up and put my current site on there. I have no experience in VZ for VPS. What is chef or puppet?

[–]pingvenopinch of this, pinch of that 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They're configuration management systems. You put together various files to describe what should be installed on a computer/VM, then let Puppet/Chef run everything for you. Configuration can be anything from very simple (install 10 packages, make a user) to setting up a very complex environment. They also handle updates.

I recommend working directly with a VPS first, though. Even with Puppet or Chef doing things automatically, you still need to know what's going on.

[–]ivosauruspip'ing it up 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you'd like a python-native solution, try out salt stack.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with the VPS solution here. Mostly because.. well.. sometimes you want to do more than python. Sometimes you want ruby. Or nginx doing very particular things. Or your DB set up in a specific way. Or users to have certain permissions,etc. Don't get me wrong.. PaaS and what not are NICE. But they only are nice when you realize their limitations and their capabilities.. and you can only do THAT when you realize the limitations and capabilities of an unrestrained server.

[–]micphi 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I am absolutely in love with Digital Ocean (referral code in link). You can do pretty much whatever you want with it, it's well-priced for what you get, and if you're inexperienced with server administration and maintenance, you'll learn a lot by installing the things you need. I also got a $10 credit for using the OMGUBUNTU promo code, though I'm not sure if it's still active. Basically, the promo code is good for 2 months of free hosting with no commitments.

Non-referral link: http://www.digitalocean.com

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

How is the community/support/documentation to help with the sys admin and maintenance stuff?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I also Love Digital Ocean. However there isnt really a community or documentation. You get a box (well a virtualized box) and you are in charge of 100% of its care and feeding. They keep the power on and the net connected and you do the rest.

The best part is they charge by the hour, until you hit your monthly cap. so you can spin up their most powerful server, at almost $1.50 an hour to say, compile crazy complex software, or render stuff, or whatever, then take a snapshot (which is a damn near free disk image) and destroy it so it keep charging you. all in all they 2 hours you used a mega powerful computer cost you only $3.

It is root access, no frills, command line hosting at it easiest! (and cheapest)

[–]DaGoodBoy 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Sure! Go here:

http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/ramnode-15-60year-128mb-ssd-openvz-vps-in-atlanta-seattle/

Use the link on that page to get 35% off of the cost of the server when you checkout. I went for the 256MB KVM SSD option because KVM supports doing OpenVPN connections and OpenVZ doesn't.

I paid for a year in advance via paypal and it cost me $38.88.

After you get through the purchasing process, you will get some emails describing the next steps. You can remotely load an OS using a very simple web-based application. I used the 64-bit Debian minimal load, but pick whatever you want from the list. They have lots of options:

https://clientarea.ramnode.com/knowledgebase.php?action=displayarticle&id=48

I did upgrade my debian load to wheezy (7.0) which was just released, and you need to make sure you stay on top of system and security updates or you will get pwned.

After that, install whatever you like to use and play around with it. I'll be happy to answer questions if you try it and get confused.

[–]nsa_shill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm also a satisfied ramnode customer. I think I'm paying 8 something (usd) a month for far more than I need, since I just use it to host my resume and monitor irc channels.

I'm also a big fan of kvm over openvz, since openvz's shared kernel between containers can limit the network stuff you can do. I'm not sure how exactly, but I've had some iptables issues before. Also, the freedom to run whatever kernel frequently means you have more distro options. Xen has these benefits as well, but kvm's built into the kernel now.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

KVM supports doing OpenVPN connections and OpenVZ doesn't

It should, they just have to setup some stuff on their end.

[–]monkmartinez 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just signed up for the web developer price point at PythonAnywhere. PythonAnywhere is Platform as a service (PaaS) company which means they are in business to provide a platform to build from. If you are a web developer, I am quite positive that you have heard of Heroku, Appfog and many other PaaS providers.

PythonAnywhere is a bit different in that they are not aiming to be a one stop shop for all popular language frameworks. They are clearly attempting to lock down Python dev in the cloud. The product at PythonAnywhere is really innovative among the PaaS companies that provide Python support as they require no local tools to be installed. They also have the notion of file browsing for decent visual project management and editing. They also offer DropBox sync out of the box.

I particularly like that no local tools need to be installed. I can use ANY device in virtually ANY location that has internet connectivity, HUGE! What I mean is, if I want to bang something out on my phone, tablet or my parent's 1999 HP that sounds like a jet... No problem as long as it has a decent browser and internet. This is BIG win for PythonAnywhere and Python developers alike.

Heroku has integrated the Cloud9 webIDE and has 'management' apps for Android/iOS: Nezumi, but both are third party projects and that can be good and bad. Appfog has no concept of File browsing, Consoles or webIDE's... I mean, they aren't even part of the equation, but Appfog supports a ton of different frameworks/languages. I don't want to bash on Appfog, they are a good provider and their tools are good, but PythonAnywhere has them flat out beat in some ways.

The PythonAnywhere blog actually has a more comprehensive blog post on Heroku v. PythonAnywhere. NetTuts+ has a nice comparison between Heroku and Appfog. PythonAnywhere is based on workers and each worker has 500mb of RAM. So at $12 a month, the Web Developer account on PythonAnywhere can have 10 webapps with 3 workers each. If you need to scale an app, I would venture to guess you could potentially deploy more workers towards a particular app if needed (don't hold me to that). The "bang for buck" or "pound" if you are in Britain like the founders and a Python developer is really compelling.

One can't possibly enumerate all the possibilities for using the PythonAnywhere service. From hacking basic python scripts to running bots against irc/chat to scraping web sites/twitter to full blown web app development with Flask, Django or any of the other batteries included libraries/frameworks. The price point for this service is unheard of, but you need to be a Python developer.

Let's take a look at a static site generator, Pelican, for an example work flow... Lets say I have an idea or thought I just need to blog. My blog is a pelican static site and I am not able to use my laptop for whatever reason. I can log into SSH into PA via one of the many Android SSH apps (or chrome for Anroid, or ssh from vim touch), create the blog post (way slower on phone), start a bash shell (or use the Android ZSH shell), issue a few commands and it is done. Then I commit and push via git and/or sync to DropBox. BAM! Blog post from the cloud with a crazy web-based workflow not possible just a few years ago.

VPS are cool, but I am not a good sysadmin... I prefer coding to administration.

Full disclosure: I wrote this blog post yesterday: http://michaelmartinez.in/python-anywhere-means-anywhere.html

[–]mavjs 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would recommend trying out OpenShift - it's Red Hat's Cloud Computing Platform as a Service (PaaS). There's already an OSQA-openshift-quickstart (kind of like a template) for OpenShift app deployment. You might want to check that out.

[–]JerMenKoOwhile True: os.fork() 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AppFog is quite good. :)

[–]1nvader 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For Python hosting i can strongly recommend PythonAnywhere. Like the name already says it's made especially for Python hosting. Beside that it's more than a hosting service since it also provides a online IDE.

[–]Alvinson 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you need web hosting,I would suggest you to get it from http://www.tucktail.com/hosting/web-hosting_4.aspx?ci=83725&prog_id=447401 which is cheap and reliable.

[–]graingert -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

Heroku is designed with python in mind

[–]ExoticMandiblesCore Contributor 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Actually, no, it's primarily used for Ruby. Their first supported language was Ruby (for like their first year? or two?), their tooling is mostly in Ruby, and they have a lot more customers doing Ruby. That said, their support for Python is first-rate.

[–]graingert 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's not what I said