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DigitalOcean App Platform

(pages.news.digitalocean.com)
646 points digianarchist | 1 comments | 06 Oct 20 14:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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user5994461 ◴[06 Oct 20 17:20 UTC] No.24700185[source]▶
I am so glad to see this. I was looking to deploy an app and the choice is either Heroku or manage your own server which I don't want to do.

Heroku gives instant deployment for the most common types of apps (python/java/ruby). It's PaaS done right, it's fantastic. You should really have a look if you're not aware of it, it's only $7 for a starter app.

Problem is, scaling up is about $50 per gigabyte of memory which makes it a dead end for anything non trivial. You're forced to go to digital ocean / Linode / OVH instead to have something affordable.

That leaves Digital Ocean as the only alternative (don't trust Linode) and it sucks because it only gives me a server to manage. I don't want to manage a server I want to run a (python) application. It's 2020 this sort of things should auto deploy from GitHub without bothering me to manage an operating system.

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076ae80a-3c97-4 ◴[06 Oct 20 18:48 UTC] No.24701039[source]▶
It's probably worth looking into the big cloud providers rather than the little guys. In Azure you can have an app service (a deployed app in any one of loads of languages without looking after the machine it sits on) with 1.75GB RAM for about $12 a month. Obviously your usage may vary and that will effect the price. But I get the feeling that the big players are cheaper than people think they are for small projects.
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user5994461 ◴[06 Oct 20 19:00 UTC] No.24701157[source]▶
The big players have separate charges for bandwidth and disk and other hidden stuff. They are way more expensive than Digital Ocean / OVH all inclusive. Worse, the costs is unpredictable which makes them a no go for a side project, I can't risk accidentally getting a $1000 bill.

As a real world example, I run a personal blog. If it were running on S3, my personal finance would have been obliterated when it got featured on HN and served 1+ TB of traffic.

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1. names_are_hard ◴[08 Oct 20 11:28 UTC] No.24718090[source]▶
I'm currently on AWS for my site and in the process of researching alternatives. I share your concern of something going wrong and being stuck with a huge bill. Someone pointed out that 1TB of outgoing traffic from Amazon EC2 would cost $90. I'm fortunate enough that that won't obliterate me, but I won't be happy if that happens. I'd rather my blog get hugged to death. Going viral isn't worth $90 to me.

But I don't think DO really solves this problem either. They say they have spending caps in some of their marketing materials, but the finer print says that overage billing is $0.01/GB. Now that's a whole lot better than Amazon's $0.09/GB, but it's not a cap.

DO can say they have "predictable pricing" because in the vast majority of the cases the "free allotment" that comes with your droplet is enough, so you never see a bandwidth charge, you pay the cost of your droplet and you're done. So yes, it's more predictable because Amazon would charge you $5.23 one month, $4.87 another month, and DO charges you $5 every month.

But I'm not worried about the 99% case, I'm worried about the extreme scenario where I somehow go viral or get DOSed. And both options leave me exposed.

That's not to say DO isn't a better deal for the hobbyist than AWS. The equivalent of DO's $5 droplet will run you much more on AWS, especially if you actually use the bandwidth they're allotting you. And the big 3 do a lot of nickel-and-diming, which is a nuisance compared to the simpler pricing model of the smaller providers.