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cheapsteak/server choice.md

Last active November 19, 2017 21:24
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server choice.md

AWS

Strengths

  • Most popular / "Safest" option
  • 1 year free trial
  • Elastic Beanstalk auto scaling
  • Good platform to learn / have on resume

Weaknesses

  • Time cost from initial configs (including Elastic Beanstalk scaling options, CloudWatch billing alerts)
  • Possibly the most expensive
  • Complicated pricing terms makes it difficult for beginners to predict costs
  • Free tier can still incur fees if usage goes over tier allowance

Digital Ocean / Amazon Lightsail / Scaleway / OVH

Strengths

  • Cheaper than AWS
  • Predictable monthly cost

Weaknesses

  • Difficult to scale
  • In my experience, performance in low tier is not great (not bad, just not great)
  • Ongoing server maintenance
  • Downtime while performing maintenance
  • Potential security vulnerabilities from improper server setup

Firebase

Strengths

  • Free tier
  • No setup or maintenance
  • If we ever need real-time simultaneous connections, it's right there

Weaknesses

  • Lock in to proprietary API
  • Next step up from free tier is $25/month
  • Next step up from $25/mo is pay-as-you-go, which may be as/more expensive than AWS
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