# Comparing hosting providers

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/comparing-hosting-providers/100034>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Tags:** hosting\
**Created:** [October 20, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/comparing-hosting-providers/100034 "2018-10-20T01:18:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 11

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**Author:** ![Stephen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/stephen/32/95011_2.png) [@Stephen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Stephen)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/comparing-hosting-providers/100034/11 "2018-10-20T19:13:26Z")

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Your first step here should probably be to fire up a $5 droplet at DigitalOcean and [give the install a shot](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/master/docs/INSTALL-cloud.md). You will be able to run multiple plugins and make mistakes with little to no risk. Pretty quickly you’re going to learn if self-hosting is for you, and if not have some idea of how much you’re willing to pay others to do it.

That $5 is prorated, so if you decide after 24hrs the exercise was a mistake you’re going to be out of pocket to the tune of… $0.16

Mailgun will be free below 10k emails/month as long as you don’t do anything daft, it’s very low-risk and will help you learn about the platform as you go.

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