Running an open source app: Usage, costs and community donations

I love the idea of this but, given the traffic numbers, this could run on a $4 Digital Ocean droplet and have the same result. They've burnt over a grand just to use vercel. Maybe I'm just older but I don't understand the logic here. A basic VPS, setup once, would have the same result and would be neutral in cost (it's how I run my own little free apps). Maybe the author is lucky enough that $100/mo doesn't really affect them or they're happy for it to pay for the convenience (my assumption).

Running a database accessed that many times on a $4 Digital Ocean droplet? I'd be very curious to see that ;)

The web hosting costs basically nothing. Most of the cost comes from the database.

6k visits per week * 5 page views per visit is one view per 20 seconds on average. Even very modest hardware with naively written application code should have no problem handling thousands of CRUD database queries per second (assuming every query doesn't need a table scan or something).

Modern computers are mind-bogglingly powerful. An old laptop off eBay can probably handle the load for business needs for all but the very largest corporations.

My understanding is that DO VPS’ are underpowered (as are VPS offerings from most other VPS vendors). Dollar for dollar, bare metal stuff from Hetzner, OVH, etc are far more powerful.

That said, I completely agree-a $4/month DO VPS can run MySQL, and should easily handle this load; in fact I’ve handled far bigger loads in practice.

On a tangent: any recommendations for good US-based bare metal providers (with a convenience factor comparable to OVH, etc)?

Hetzner is of course not U.S. based, but has expanded to have 2 U.S. sites (Oregon i think, and Virginia)....so that could be an option maybe. Caveat: i have not leveraged Hetzner in the U.s.....so can not speak to their quality.