Section 1.1: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Initially, when I sought a server for my application, AWS was the first provider that came to mind. I signed up for a trial and launched my first EC2 instance. AWS is indeed a robust platform for hosting enterprise solutions, enabling automation, scalability, high availability, and resilience against failures. However, do you really need all those costly features right from the start? Most often, the answer is no, especially if you plan to grow and transition to these capabilities later.

Being agile means beginning with something basic, simple, and cost-effective that can be upgraded over time.

Soon, I realized that my minimum monthly bill with AWS exceeded $70, which was excessive for a non-profit pet project.

You might notice that DocumentDB is the priciest option here. I considered setting up MongoDB on an EC2 instance, but given my limited DevOps skills, I decided against it as it would consume a significant amount of time.

Section 1.2: Digital Ocean

When evaluating options, a friend suggested I look into Digital Ocean, which his company frequently uses for new projects. A quick glance at their pricing revealed that it was even more affordable than AWS's Spot EC2 instances, without the risk of being suspended during high demand periods.

What I appreciated about Digital Ocean was their one-click applications. This feature simplifies the process of launching your application server without unnecessary complications.

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I opted for the most economical droplet option with 1GB of RAM. However, when I deployed my first Java Spring Boot app using Dokku, I quickly discovered that 1GB was insufficient, leading me to upgrade to a $10 droplet with 2GB of memory. Fortunately, this was a straightforward process.

While Digital Ocean lacks a formal Service Level Agreement (SLA) like AWS, my application ran smoothly for a year without any downtime.

Section 1.3: Hetzner Cloud

Eventually, I encountered a colleague who recommended Hetzner Cloud. He had been successfully hosting his startup infrastructure there, serving hundreds of daily users, primarily from Europe. He provided excellent feedback regarding their service, especially given the low pricing.

Most Hetzner servers are based in Germany, and their smallest plan offers 2GB of memory for less than $5. I was able to have my server up and running in Hetzner the next day as part of a trial.

I continued using Dokku for DevOps tasks, but unlike Digital Ocean, I had to install Dokku manually since they do not offer one-click apps. Nevertheless, Hetzner provides all essential features needed to launch an application in the cloud, including load balancers, backups, dashboards, and networking tools.

In summary, I find Hetzner Cloud to be comparable to Digital Ocean, albeit less popular and therefore more affordable. As of March 2022, my application has been running on Hetzner for four months, and I’m very satisfied with its stability and performance.