Provider di hosting raccomandati per chi si autocostruisce

Supporto Installazione
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Questa guida è destinata a persone che non sono amministratori di sistema e che desiderano semplicemente far funzionare Discourse. Si tratta di un elenco di servizi di hosting cloud considerati affidabili e sufficientemente semplici da configurare per un principiante, con il minimo di intervento manuale possibile. Dovresti essere in grado di creare un account e un server su cui eseguire la tua istanza di Discourse, completando l’operazione in circa 30 minuti.

Ho installato Discourse su ciascuno di questi servizi, ricevuto un’email da Discourse e utilizzato tale email per accedere come amministratore. Per tutti questi, le istruzioni standard Install Cloud funzionano perfettamente.

E AWS, Azure e Google Cloud?

Se hai passato molte ore a utilizzare bash, sai cosa sono le porte 80, 443 e 22, e sei familiare con firewall, partizioni e cos’è un bucket S3, ciascuno di questi funzionerà perfettamente. Se non hai mai trovato una soluzione ai tuoi problemi utilizzando Stack Exchange, è probabile che dovresti tenerti alla larga da questi provider. Questi sono le auto sportive capricciose del mondo dell’hosting. Questa guida ha lo scopo di aiutarti a trovare qualcosa di più simile a una Honda Civic piuttosto che a una vettura di Formula 1.

E OtherGreatService?

Semplice e Affidabile

La tabella seguente fornisce un confronto tra questi provider facili da usare. La colonna “Tempo di build” è il risultato di

time ./launcher rebuild app

Non è un benchmark significativo, ma una misura approssimativa della velocità di CPU, disco e rete. I risultati possono variare. Puoi notare, tuttavia, che l’istanza “ottimizzata” di Digital Ocean è quasi due volte più veloce di quella standard da 1 GB.

Provider Prezzo Disco CPU GB RAM Tempo di build Data Center
Digital Ocean $6 25GB 1 1 10m US (2), NL, SG, UK, DE, CA, IN, AU
DO Ottimizzato $42 25GB 2 4 5m47s US (2), NL, SG, UK, DE, CA, IN
Hetzner CX22 (x86) €3.95 40GB 2 4 9m56s DE, FI, SG, US (2)
Hetzner CAX11 (arm64) €3.95 40GB 2 4 5m45s DE, FI
Lightsail $10 30GB 1 2 8m17s US (3), JP, SG, AU, IN
Linode 1024 $5 20GB 1 1 9m46s US (3), UK, DE, SG, JP
Scaleway E10 10GB 2 2 ---- FR, PL, NL
Upcloud $10 30GB 1 2 7m22s DE, FI, NL, JP, UK, US
Vultr $5 24GB 1 1 8m US (7), NL, FR, DE, UK, JP, SG, AU

Nota: I tempi di build dipendono dal numero di post, plugin e molti altri fattori. Più il tuo sito cresce, più tempo richiederà.

Note sui Provider

Queste sono note sui singoli provider. Se hai avuto esperienze positive con uno di essi, sentiti libero di aggiungere i tuoi commenti qui. Se hai commenti negativi, aggiungili come risposta.

Amazon AWS/Lightsail

Prezzi: https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/pricing/

Super semplice! Clicca su un pulsante per aprire una finestra con una connessione SSH già loggata.

Utilizza ubuntu@hostname invece di root@hostname. Non è ciò che fanno la maggior parte dei siti, ma è simile ad AWS e leggermente più sicuro.

Digital Ocean

Prezzi: https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/

Questo è il provider più semplice, più facile e più utilizzato, e grazie al recente calo dei prezzi, è nuovamente molto competitivo. Un problema per chi non si trova negli Stati Uniti è che a volte rendono più difficile la creazione di un account e bloccano le porte SMTP in uscita (il mio script di installazione standard aggira questo problema utilizzando la porta 2525, che è supportata da Mailgun e altri provider).

Hetzner

Prezzi: https://www.hetzner.com/cloud#pricing

https://meta.discourse.org/t/hetzner-launches-a-vps-service/78759/6

Linode

https://www.linode.com/pricing

https://meta.discourse.org/t/suggestion-for-good-vps-to-host-discourse-digital-ocean-or-linode/8852/35?u=pfaffman

Nota: Rimuovi lo spazio di swap troppo piccolo che viene creato automaticamente. discourse-setup creerà per te un file di swap da 2 GB.

Scaleway

Accetta carte di credito, debito e addebito diretto SEPA

Upcloud

https://www.upcloud.com/pricing/

Nessun problema o frustrazione nella creazione di un account e nell’avvio di un server.

Vultr

https://www.vultr.com/pricing/

Accetta PayPal, Bitcoin, Alipay

Non ho avuto problemi o frustrazioni nella creazione di un account e nell’esecuzione dell’installazione.

contabo.com:

Forse il più economico qui: 4 core/4 GB RAM/5,80 USD + tasse. (al 10 marzo 2025)

Alibaba Cloud

Server Applicativo Semplice, prezzo:

E XXX?

Se utilizzi un provider semplice da configurare e affidabile, sentiti libero di lasciare un commento con la tua raccomandazione. In alternativa, puoi modificare questo post per aggiungere le tue esperienze.

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3

Great overview Jay, thanks! I did notice one thing though:

This comparison isn’t entirely fair; you’re comparing a 1 CPU/1GB droplet to a 2 CPU/4GB ‘optimized’ one. They also offer a $20/month regular droplet with 2 cpu’s and 4GB Ram - it would be interesting to see how this performs when compared to the optimized version.

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4

It’s not intended to be.

Perhaps. My guess is that having more ram on the same slower processor as the 1GB droplet won’t make that much different on a build. Once someone gets to that point, though, this guide isn’t much help. If you have a huge database, an 8GB “slow” droplet might outperform a 4GB “fast” one. It’s not really a very useful statistic for the Real World.

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5

It does, especially with 2GB or below.

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6

Oh. Right! Because swap. Duh.

The point if this guide, though, is just to get people to be able to do an install, not to make decisions about whether this host or that host is better for their unique situation.

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7

Not sure if this is super important, but it might be worth noting (especially for novices) that their support is available only during (German) office hours. (I don’t mean to discourage anyone from using them - I’m a happy Hetzner user myself - just an FYI.)

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10

I am using UCloud(Hosting provider in China)
because I have coupon. it’s cheaper.
anyway, my point is I would post about UCloud hosting Discourse after using it for awhile.
in here & my blog. hope it can help other people.

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11

I just did a rebuild (with multiple plugins installed) and it finished in pretty much exactly 7 minutes. Not sure where the variation comes from, but I thought I’d mention it cause that makes Hetzner even faster than UpCloud.

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12

https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ecs

$4.50

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13

6 posts were split to a new topic: Set up some email

14

What does “optimized” means and how can we “optimize” our own servers?

15

Like we mention " Digital Ocean Optimized" instances in the table on the OP? That’s just marketing lingo for a CPU with usually 3.0GHz+ of clock speed. Like the AWS C5.large family.

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I am on Ramnode. Rebuild time is 8m22.374s.

KVM (necessary to run docker), 2cpu 2.4GHz, 2GB ram + 4swap, 40GB ssd, $10 per month (12 for NVMe).

It has 1 datacenter in EU, 4 in US. Cpanel, reverse-dns, quick support team.
Recommended for those who like everything under control.

Currently my instance is running only for tests, so I cannot say yet, how stable it can be in production mode with a lot of users online.

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18

I’ve just spun up a Discourse installation there in the last couple of weeks, but I’ve been using Contabo for other VPS needs for a bit over a year. Pricing starts at 3.99 EUR/mo for a “SSD-boosted” instance with two cores, 4 GB RAM, and 300 GB storage, or 4.99 EUR/mo for an all-SSD instance with four cores, 8 GB RAM, and 200 GB storage. Setup isn’t quite as quick as DO, but they’ll run any major Linux distro.

Rebuild time on my small SSD instance is 5 minutes, 1 sec.

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19

Forgive me if this seems like a silly question, I definitely fall under this category:

I don’t know what I’m doiiiing! :tired_face: My head is spinning from even the minimal amount of info I’ve read here on meta!

Does Digital Ocean offer in-house server maintenance, management and backups? I’m referring to this post from a different topic.

Like, will those services be included in my plan if I self host with DO? Or will I have to seek someone like “Literate Computing, LLC” to help me manage my server instance with DO?

This whole realm of self hosting is completely mysterious to me, but I’d like to give it an honest consideration so I can confidently make a hosting decision by weighing the major pros/cons of Discourse hosting vs self hosting for my specific situation.

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20

They do not. They provide a virtual machine. If it’s running, they are doing their job. They do provide backups of the entire virtual machine, which might be all you need.

If you want backups, updates, and someone to care if Discourse isn’t working, you want a hosted solution or to pay someone to manage your “self-hosted” site.

If you want to give self-hosting a try, you can always switch later unless something calamitous happens like you delete the droplet or lose control of your digital ocean account (I’ve never heard of either of those things happening).

5 Mi Piace
21

Thank you for explaining this to me!

So, budget is kind of tight for me. Two questions:

1. Are the different package tiers still applicable if I wanted to self host?

All the site says is this:

Screenshot%20(121)
Screenshot%20(121)2303×844 130 KB

Does this mean: Tier package price + installation fee?

Or is it just a flat rate of $99 for a one-size-fits-all Discourse instance and installation?

2. Is self hosting really cheaper?

This is the major deciding factor in making the decision to self host or not.

I will probably be more than fine going with the Basic tier instance for my community. Would the

  • time
  • money
  • and effort

of self hosting really contribute to the greater value of self hosting over a Discourse hosted instance?

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22

If you’re that unsure, then just having Discourse-hosted site would probably be the best - and easiest for you. While that costs $99 for the installation (by Discourse) and $100/month, there is nothing for you to do regarding upgrades and backups. These are done by Discourse. Also, should any problems arise, Discourse will handle that. It is a “No worries” situation. You also get a 14-day free trial to decide if this is right for you.
On the other hand, if you don’t want to pay $100/month, you can have Discourse do the installation for you on Digital Ocean (DO) where Discourse will charge $99 installation and DO will charge you $5/month for hosting. But should any problems arise, you will be responsible to fix them. That’s why it says “this option is completely self-support after the initial install.” But this forum is always here to help as much as they can. :smiley:
If you were tech savvy enough, you could do the install yourself on a DO droplet and only pay the $5/month to DO. You still have to provide your own support.

That would depend upon you. If you have no idea as to what you are doing, or have a minimal knowledge of this, what you may save in monthly costs could later on cost you in something not working properly, downtime, aggravation, frustration, etc… And you could end up paying someone to fix things for you if you were unable to implement on your own any fixes suggestion on this forum.

If you know what you are doing, self-hosting is cheaper. If you don’t, self-hosting could be a mild nightmare. In my case, I was suddenly given just 3 weeks to come up with a forum to replace an existing one that was going to be shut down. After weighing the options, I went with the “no hassles” option of a Discourse-hosted forum. I bought the domain, Discourse did the install and maintains it. I just have to contend with the users. :slightly_smiling_face:

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23

You need to consider what happens if you have a problem. At setup this is not a big problem but once you’ve launched your forum then downtime is bad news.

Provided you have no problems then self-hosting Discourse on a VPS is good value for a tight budget. But you only have to have one problem to consume 5-20 hours of your time. So how much is your time worth? And how constrained is your budget? Your solution will be somewhere between those two parameters.

I also recommend that you work out which plug-ins you are likely to need because that has a potential impact. Plug-ins appear to be the source of many of the difficult problems that face self-hosters so you can work out your risk profile by answering these questions. The higher the risk then the more attractive Discourse hosting becomes:

  • Do I need to use official plug-ins? Low risk.
  • Do I need to use third-party plug-ins ie. not officially supported? High risk.
  • Are they well-supported third-party plug-ins? Medium risk.

The Discourse hosting plans from various providers are partly based on varying collections of pre-installed plug-ins, e.g.:

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