#hosting | Anand S - Things I Learned

Sat, May 31, 2025. I was exploring free alternatives to the $4/mo Hetzner instance I use. Google offers a free e2 micro instance. But it's much smaller than the Hetzner CAX11/CX-22 server I run. 25% of CPU, 25% of RAM (which is the main problem -- 1 GB is often not enough), slower HDD, 5% of outbound traffic. Hetzner remains one of the best value offerings. #cloud #hosting

Mon, May 12, 2025. CloudFlare Zero Trust seems the easiest way to enable auth on static websites, especially if your DNS is already on Cloudflare. No cost #cloud #hosting

Tue, May 6, 2025. GitHub does not let you control the cache duration, but there are many creative workarounds. ChatGPT #cloud #github #hosting
- HTML meta tags: <meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate">
- Use a service worker (blog)
- Proxy through a CDN. Cloudflare, Netlify
- Move to another static host: S3 + CloudFront, Heroku, Vercel, Surge, Firebase Hosting

Fri, May 2, 2025. ServerHunter.com seems to have the best search for low-cost hosting providers. MassiveGrid currently offers the cheapest servers -- even lower than Hetzner. #hosting #server

Sun, Apr 27, 2025. It's interesting how many places offer a free compute via shells (apart from Google Colab): #ai-coding-tools #cloud #github #hosting
- Google Cloud Shell: Free for 50 hours/week, refreshed every Monday. Sessions last up to 12 hours and terminate after ~1 hour inactivity. Ref
- Azure Cloud Shell: Always free to use with 5 GB free storage for first 12 months (standard rates after). No documented session limits but typically times out after prolonged inactivity. Ref
- AWS Cloud9: Free IDE, underlying compute free under AWS Free Tier (750 hours/month EC2 t2.micro or t3.micro for first 12 months). Regular EC2 rates apply afterward. Ref
- Gitpod: Free tier offers 500 credits/month (~50 hrs). Workspaces run up to 8 hours/session and stop after 30 minutes inactivity. Ref
- GitHub Codespaces: 120 core-hours/month (~60 hrs with 2-core machine) and 15 GB storage free. Sessions timeout after 30 minutes inactivity. Ref
  - Create: gh codespace create --idle-timeout 10m --machine basicLinux32gb -R $USER/$REPO returns the $CONTAINER_ID
  - SSH: gh codespace ssh -c $CONTAINER_ID
  - Delete: gh codespace delete -c $CONTAINER_ID
- Replit: Free Starter plan provides 20 hours/month, 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 2 GiB storage. Repls sleep after 30 minutes inactivity. Ref
- IBM Cloud Shell: Free for all users; 50 h/week per region; any open session counts toward quota; sessions can run any length up to weekly cap; 500 MB temporary workspace. Ref
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Shell: Free within tenancy limits; up to 400 h/month on Pay-As-You-Go, 240 h/month on Universal Credits; 5 GB encrypted persistent home. Ref
- PythonAnywhere: Free (beginner plan), includes one web app (restricted outbound), low CPU/bandwidth, no Jupyter; 2 concurrent Bash/Python consoles, 500 MB disk; limited daily CPU. Ref
- Glitch: Starter (free) plan—full-stack apps sleep after 5 min inactivity and wake on request; unlimited public/private projects; container state preserved. Ref
- CodeSandbox: Free tier provides 400 credits/month (~40 h of 2 vCPU+4 GB Devbox runtime), unlimited front-end Sandboxes (no credits), up to 20 Sandboxes/workspace. Ref

Sun, Mar 23, 2025. I've settled on squoosh.app for image compression using WebP. I'm exploring FreeImage.host for image hosting instead of Imgur for WEBP support. FreeImage.host also seems reliable, retains file sizes, and supports hotlinking. #hosting #image-generation #web-dev

Tue, Jan 7, 2025. Cloudflare tunnel is like ngrok but more permanent. It's a bit more complex, too. But given CloudFlare's liberal free tier, it's a good, viable option for long-term local hosting. #cloud #hosting #networking

Sat, Dec 21, 2024. What to use for hosting: ChatGPT #chatgpt #cloud #github #hosting #html #server #web-dev
- GitHub Pages: Static websites, medium files
- Cloudflare Pages: Static websites, global delivery
- Vercel: Frontend frameworks (e.g. Next.js) with high DX and ISR, small files
- Netlify: JAMstack projects, minimal back-end, moderate files
- Glitch: Small static projects
- Render: Full-stack apps requiring databases and server-side compute
- Firebase Hosting: Small sites, limited large files
- Archive.org: Public archival, large files
- Google Drive: File sharing, large files
- Dropbox: File sharing, moderate files
- Cloudflare R2: Static assets, large file delivery

Wed, Oct 23, 2024. 0x0.st is an open API-based file upload + URL shortening service. You can dump files there temporarily. #hosting

Sat, Sep 21, 2024. E2E is a cheap GPU hosting provider for India. About Rs 100/hr for a V100 16GB #gpu #hosting

Mon, Jul 22, 2024. Awesome PaaS lists self-hosted deployment platforms. Piku - similar to Dokku -- is promising. #cloud #github #hosting

Sat, Mar 30, 2024. TechEmpower web server benchmarks place Rust servers on top #hosting #prompt-engineering #server #web-dev

Wed, Feb 14, 2024. Fly.io offers GPU hosting and auto stop when they have nothing to do. #cloud #gpu #hosting