web hosting
Web hosting can be the primary regular cost in maintaining an IndieWeb site; this page lists several options from free on up depending on your publishing needs, like a static, shared, private, or dedicated server.
Typical for-pay hosting services more expensive than most domain name registrations/renewals. Web hosting services serve web pages on a domain of your choice.
Contents
Criteria
Hosting providers aren't one size fits all. Picking one is in some ways like picking a cell phone provider. There are lots of factors that determine whether a given provider is right for you personally. etc. Here are some questions you'll want to think about to get started.
- How much code do you want to write: none, some, lots?
- How much are you willing to pay? Nothing, a little, or more?
- Do you want individualized customer support?
- Do you need any guarantees on availability, e.g. an SLA?
- How much risk tolerance and security expertise? Will you keep up with patches, etc?
- If you're technical, do you need a shell account? Do you need root?
See hostingnotes for some unstructured notes on the offerings of specific providers (in early 2014).
Services by Type
Here are various levels of web hosting service available from different providers, roughly ordered from easiest/cheapest/friendliest to most powerful/technical.
Custom domain silos
Some silos allow you to configure your profile to use your own domain name, thus at least giving you some ownership over your permalinks (that you can potentially transfer to your own web host later) and are thus worth considering as a content hosting service.
- micro.blog ($5/mo): instructions
- Tumblr (free): instructions
- WordPress.com ($5/mo): instructions
- Squarespace (starts at $8/mo): instructions
- Blogger (free): instructions
- NeoCities ($5/mo): [1]
micro.blog is highly recommended. It provides almost complete hosted IndieWeb. It supports articles, notes, photos, replies, podcasts custom domains, microformats, micropub, webmentions, and IndieAuth out of the box. (The one caveat is webmentions to/from external sites. As of 2019-02-01, they're still in progress, particularly sending outbound webmentions from original posts.)
Tumblr is also recommended as a second choice because:
- It has beautiful, usable, mobile friendly default templates
- It has a friendly posting and admin interface
- It has many posting options (web, mobile apps, email, instant messaging)
- It supports user-centric site icons (your profile icon/avatar is automatically hosted as your personal site icon)
Advantages of custom domain silos:
- Zero maintenance. No software or servers for you to maintain or update (e.g. security updates).
Disadvantages:
- Choice of configuration typically limited to templates
- Terms of service may limit your options for monetizing your site.
- Maintaining URL permalinks may be challenging when you switch to another (more self-owned / self-run) solution.
Hosted CMS Software as Service
Some open source software is hosted on various domains and can be set up to serve your personal domain for you.
- Known (free): [2]
- Wordpress.com (small fee): instructions
- WP Engine (fee): instructions
- IndieHosters (fee): [3]
Advantages of hosted CMS software:
- Regular security updates
- Easier migration from hosted to your own web server / VPS (as compared to silos above).
Disadvantages:
- Choice of software platform typically limited to plug-ins and perhaps javascript.
- Terms of service may limit your options for monetizing your site.
Static domain hosting
Simpler and more portable to a dynamic content web hosting solution, static hosted domain solutions are (likely) even more reliable while still be free or very cheap:
File hosting services which provide serving static files over HTTP
Advantages of static hosting:
- Very cheap. (See Date Edge's usage/billing)
- ...
Disadvantages:
- Complicated to set up.
- ...
Dropbox
- Dropbox (free)
- See the main article for guides and services that help host a small static site on Dropbox.
GitHub Pages
- GitHub Pages (free) - GitHub Pages is designed for hosting simple static web pages. In addition to github's instructions, there are several guides on how to use GitHub Pages to host your website:
- Based on Jekyll
- http://opentechschool.github.io/social-coding/extras/github-pages.html
- Example: BootStrap blog powered by Jekyll and Github pages
- An advantage to using a Github based solution is that you can easily transfer it to another web host simply by deploying from github to your web host.
Amazon S3
- Amazon S3 (very cheap): instructions (via [4]).
Google Cloud Platform
- Static hosting can be done using Cloud Storage service.
Netlify
- Netlify (free) - Supports various static site generators: Jekyll, Grunt, Middleman, Hexo, Hugo, Gatsby
IndieWeb static hosting users
IndieWeb community members using this approach:
- Aral Balkan (UK 2012-2013) [5] (S3)
- Leonardo Zangrando lionzan.me (S3)
-
Christophe Ducamp (JAMStack GitHub + Netlify's CDN) (settings here)
FTP access with PHP or Perl CGI in a shared hosting environment
- Dreamhost
- Empowering Media
- SollHost
- Krystal UK Based, very good shared servers with incredible support. They have packages for both beginners and large companies alike.
- Pair has been around forever, has lots of reasonable plans, and is generally very clueful.
- freeshell.org aka the SDF Public Access UNIX System
- Webfaction has lots of plans, supported languages and databases; runs Apache/ngnix.
- a small orange has nice shared hosting starting at 250MB for $35/year. Good customer support.
Kyle Mahan has had good experiences with them in the past.
- Name.com
- Reclaim Hosting
- ...
Other opinions: HostJury is a crowd-sourced web host review service, though whether the crowd is sufficiently large and diverse to reduce the bias to a useful level is unclear.
Advantages of shared hosting:
- no ads or other items on your page
- Zero OS/LAMP maintenance. Shared hosting services will automatically handle updating your server's operating system, HTTP server, language support (e.g. PHP).
- Ability to install your own backend scripts (e.g. PHP) to run your website
- ...
Disadvantages:
- Little to no choice of HTTP software. Typical shared hosts require you to use whatever HTTP server they maintain, e.g. Apache, Lightspeed HTTP, etc. HTTP server software then becomes another factor in how you pick a shared hosting provider.
- Fixed bandwidth/storage limits (typically)
- Very little configuration control, eg of domain setup
- Usually no ability to use newer technologies like websockets
- Unless you're relatively technical, apps are installed through stores like Installatron that are themselves silos
- ...
IndieWeb community members using this approach:
- Tantek Çelik with tantek.com running Falcon (CASSIS/PHP) on Empowering Media
- Ryan Barrett with snarfed.org running WordPress on Pair
- Kartik Prabhu with kartikprabhu.com running Django (based on Python) on Webfaction
- Colin Tedford with colintedford.com running WordPress on Dreamhost since 2005
- npdoty.name with several static, PHP and Node.js sites on Webfaction
-
Chris Aldrich with BoffoSocko.com running WordPress on 1&1
-
gRegor Morrill with https://gregorlove.com running ProcessWire on Dreamhost
- ...
Platform as Service
High-level language-specific runtime environment
Advantages of Platform as Service:
- ...
Disadvantages:
- ...
IndieWeb community members using this approach:
- Ryan Barrett with Bridgy on App Engine
- ...
Virtual Private Server
Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a hosting model where you get root access to a virtual system and can install whatever you want
- Bytemark (UK)
- Flosoft (DE)
- Hosteurope (DE)
- Used by
Christian Weiske
- Used by
- Linode
- Gandi provides simple pre configured virtual machines with PHP / NodeJS / MySQL / PgSQL / MongoDB starting 5$ a month. Servers are both in Europe and in the USA.
- Digital Ocean is similar to Linode, but starting at $5/mo.
- Atlantic.net is similar to DigitalOcean and Linode, but offers a "GO" plan for $0.99 a month.
- Pair (see above)
- Google Compute Engine
- Amazon AWS
- Rackspace
- Prgrmr
- Used by tommorris.org
- LowEndBox is a site for reviews/offers of inexpensive VPS services from various companies. Your mileage may vary.
- Vultr Vultr is like AWS but simple.
- Network Presence
Advantages of a VPS:
- full control over software stack
- being able to run as many tools as needed or required
Disadvantages:
- all maintenance is your responsibility
- must be comfortable as a sysadmin
IndieWeb community members using this approach:
- aaronpk
- Kyle Mahan runs Python/Flask on a Digital Ocean VPS
- Jeremy Keith runs PHP/MySQL/Apache on a Digital Ocean VPS
- cweiske
-
Marty McGuire runs Python/Flask on a $5/mo Digital Ocean VPS
-
Malcolm Blaney
Dedicated Server
A discrete, physical server, on a rack or otherwise, which you get full access to, can optionally upgrade (for an additional monthly fee if the server is rented), and install whatever you want.
- Bytemark (UK)
- Flosoft (DE)
- Used by Bear
- Kimsufi provides low cost dedicated servers in several datacenters across the world.
- Rackspace
- ServerBeach
- SoftLayer
- Used by Ben Werdmuller
- Hetzner (Germany)
- Used by Peter Molnar and Shane Hudson
- they have "remarketed" servers offer for a very nice price Hetzner Online Server Auction
Advantages of a server:
- Full control (as VPS) and speed; no need to share resources beyond bandwidth
- large disk space could be used for online backup and server could be a host for a group of sites/peole
Disadvantages:
- Price (although depending on load they can be more cost effective than a VPS)
- See VPS
IndieWeb community members using this approach:
- Ben Werdmuller
- Bear
- Peter Molnar
- Shane Hudson (In process of migration)
Home server
Home Hosting (or self-hosting) is the practice of keeping your personal data at home on a home server, typically on second-hand hardware or single-board computers.
Setting up a personal cloud allow unexperienced users to administrate their own server at home through nice user interfaces.
Hosting services on a dynamic IP address requires to use a dynamic DNS provider.
For more information about self-hosting, see home server.
IndieWeb community members using this approach:
-
AJ Jordan since 2011-12-19 (but only really started hosting real services 2014-08-19)
Appliance Server
Similar to a VPS except the server is pre-configured to run an application for you. The appliance server is chosen based on the application you want to run. This might help less technical users get started with their own server.
Disadvantages:
- More expensive than a VPS
Articles
Articles about web hosting recommendations, problems, challenges. Newest first.
- 2014-03-27 Brent Simmons: What Did I Just Learn?
- 2014-03-27 Brent Simmons: On Running Your Own Servers, and Why We’re Not
- 2013-02-01 Kathy E. Gill: Mini-rant: Web hosting company set up policies
- mentions AcornHost, Dreamhost, FatCow, MediaTemple
- 2012-05-20 Lifehacker: Five Best Web Hosting Companies
- mentions A Small Orange, Bluehost, Dreamhost, HostGator, InMotion Hosting, Linode, NearlyFreeSpeech, Rackspace
- 2010-05-23 Lifehacker: Five Best Personal Web Hosts]
- mentions: 1&1, Bluehost, Dreamhost, HostGator, NearlyFreeSpeech
- ...
FAQ
Is using 3rd party hosting still indieweb
Q: If you use one of the 3rd party hosting options above (i.e. everything except for home hosting), you are still hosting your content on a webserver which is controlled by a third party, which thus could control your data. How is a setup where a 3rd party could control your server and data still indieweb?
A: Since it's the indie*web*, not indie everything, the important part is to own your web identity, which basically means owning the URLs. As long as you control the URLs, you can move between backend providers as you wish. You are in control of your online identity if you own the URLs.