Discourse and Vultr? Where to start on new instance for multi?

Hey there! I have been ‘shopping’ for different forum solutions that have nothing to do with PHP and really innovate the entire ‘thing’ of forums. I’ve checked out NodeBB but it is lacking in community-related aspects that I need for my forum. Discourse looks to be exactly what I need.

I noticed the emphasis on DO around here. I tried them, did my research. I decided instead to go to Vultr.

My questions are:

  • Will Discourse work on a Vultr instance? If so, is the 4GB Memory and 2 CPU enough for a Discourse multi installation? I want to do two forums and a WordPress blog for each and include forced HTTPS through port 443.
  • I am willing to re-install my server instance if need be. What do I need to do (in order of completion) to set up nginx with Docker and Discourse to host two separate forums? (on two separate domain names: domain1.com for WordPress blog; forum.domain1.com for first Discourse forum; domain2.com for the other Wordpress blog; forum.domain2.com for second Discourse forum)

I have gone over what I could to search for these answers. I got some useful threads, but I have no idea in what order to do them.

Granted, yes, I am a beginner with Linux and Ruby on Rails but I have been practicing with the command line over the past month. I am not new to working with web-related skills needed to do this.

What also is kinda worrying me is this thread on Discourse performance.

Thank you for reading. I hope I don’t come off as demanding! I really want to dig in and get started but all this wealth of information is daunting at best. A good point in the right direction to get started would be ace.

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Yes, that should be fine provided Docker is supported there. Start with our standard install guide and then look at the multi site howto.

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@codinghorror basically covered it. Check if you can install docker, if you can’t, try switching the kernel. If you can’t do that, a different provider is needed.

Server performance is fine, even phenomenal. It’s the clientside performance that is problematic.

Also, try checking out the “Advanced Troubleshooting With Docker” topic if you want a deeper understanding of how it works.

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I’m running a Discourse forum that is just getting started on a 768MB RAM CoreOS VPS on Vultr. Traffic is pretty low so far, and performance is great.

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Make sure to add a swapfile to ensure that upgrades can complete if you’re under 1GB of ram.

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Ah, yes. I did that too. (FYI here’s how to add a swap file to CoreOS: CoreOS swap · GitHub)

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One thing that makes Vultr better than DigitalOcean is their unlimited storage, which is so important for media-rich communities.

With only $0.10 per GB per month, you can buy as much as 100 000 GB if you need to.

I have never used Vultr before.
Because we always hit limits with out kozovod, it might well be we will migrate to Vultr unless DigitalOcean starts selling cheap additional storage. It might be against their marketing though as when you need more storage you’ll have to buy a more expensive VPS instance, which is what they need.

Price comparison: Digital Ocean vs Vultr

$5 $10 $20 $40

Memory

Digital Ocean 512 MB 1 GB 2 GB 4 GB
Vultr 768 MB 1 GB 2 GB 4 GB

SSD Storage

Digital Ocean 20 GB 30 GB 40 GB 60 GB
Vultr 15 GB 20 GB 45 GB 90 GB

CPU

Digital Ocean 1 CPU 1 CPU 2 CPU 2 CPU
Vultr 1 CPU 1 CPU 2 CPU 4 CPU

Bandwidth

Digital Ocean 1 TB 2 TB 3 TB 4 TB
Vultr 1 TB 2 TB 3 TB 4 TB

Notes

  • DigitalOcean uses “core”, Vultr uses “CPU”. Not sure if there is difference in the meaning. Not sure how different the units are in terms of processing power either.
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CPU and core mean the same.

Vultr still feels fast to me; same as it did when I opened this topic.

However, one thing to note: they block mail-related ports by default. This prevents the IP blocks from poisoning. I feel this is what makes Vultr better than the competition.

A simple request via tickets removes the blocks. In doing so you agree to their stringent no-spam policy.

I feel this protects their high speeds that sets them apart from the competition.

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Just to be crystal clear, 1GB ram is still the absolute minimum RAM to run a public Discourse instance that other human beings visit.

So despite seeing “768MB RAM”, it’s still not enough to run Discourse… I suggest not even listing tiers with < 1GB RAM.

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