cheapsteak
11/19/2017 - 6:03 AM
server choice.md
AWS
Strengths
- Most popular / "Safest" option
- 1 year free trial
- Elastic Beanstalk auto scaling
- Good platform to learn / have on resume
Weaknesses
- Time cost from initial configs (including Elastic Beanstalk scaling options, CloudWatch billing alerts)
- Possibly the most expensive
- Complicated pricing terms makes it difficult for beginners to predict costs
- Free tier can still incur fees if usage goes over tier allowance
Digital Ocean / Amazon Lightsail / Scaleway / OVH
Strengths
- Cheaper than AWS
- Predictable monthly cost
Weaknesses
- Difficult to scale
- In my experience, performance in low tier is not great (not bad, just not great)
- Ongoing server maintenance
- Downtime while performing maintenance
- Potential security vulnerabilities from improper server setup
Firebase
Strengths
- Free tier
- No setup or maintenance
- If we ever need real-time simultaneous connections, it's right there
Weaknesses
- Lock in to proprietary API
- Next step up from free tier is $25/month
- Next step up from $25/mo is pay-as-you-go, which may be as/more expensive than AWS