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Replacing a $3000/mo Heroku bill with a $55/mo server

(disco.cloud)
804 points jryio | 7 comments | 21 Oct 25 20:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.803s | source | bottom
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tempest_ ◴[21 Oct 25 20:54 UTC] No.45661573[source]▶
The cloud has made people forget how far you can get with a single machine.

Hosting staging envs in pricey cloud envs seems crazy to me but I understand why you would want to because modern clouds can have a lot of moving parts.

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1. nimbius ◴[21 Oct 25 21:17 UTC] No.45661835[source]▶
you can literally buy a used dell desktop that matches the spec for hetzner (8 core, 32 gigs of ram) for under 500 USD. Why wouldnt you just do that?

As cloud marches on it continues to seem like a grift.

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2. sodality2 ◴[21 Oct 25 21:32 UTC] No.45661995[source]▶
Do you plan on keeping it in your home? At that point I'd be worried about ISP networking or power guarantees unless you plan on upgrading to business rates for both. If you mean colo, well, if you're sure you'll be using it in X years, it's worth it, but the flexibility of month-to-month might be preferable.
3. SchemaLoad ◴[21 Oct 25 21:44 UTC] No.45662116[source]▶
Because that used desktop is subject to power outages, internet outages, the cleaners unplugging it, etc. Datacenters have redundancy on everything.
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4. eru ◴[22 Oct 25 00:25 UTC] No.45663560[source]▶
Also you still have to pay for the electricity on that thing.

The cloud costs includes everything.

5. marcosdumay ◴[22 Oct 25 01:35 UTC] No.45663986[source]▶
And you'll need some $100/month to colocate that thing, so you are better spending some more and buying a reasonable server that uses only 1U.
6. jopsen ◴[22 Oct 25 10:24 UTC] No.45667056[source]▶
Not to mention physical security.

Breaking into a home is relatively easy.

And unless you live in the US and is willing to actually shot someone (with all the paperwork that entails, as well as physical and legal risks), the fact is that you can't actually stop a burglary.

7. ngold ◴[23 Oct 25 06:28 UTC] No.45678805[source]▶
I'm probably wrong, but this argument always cracks me up.

It used to be called 3 laptops a power scrubber and a backup battery. If you want to go self hosting things. If you were fancy you had two servers.