I want to selfhost my own personal website. This is just for fun, as a hobby and to show off my skills to others. nothing big.
I have my own server home but I want to have something that’s separate from my personal stuff.
I do not need any support, meaning it can be as cheap as possible. I do not yet know how much RAM or CPU or storage I need. I guess CPU > 2GHz and 2GB RAM should be enough to start.
daily/weekly backup with rsync in case the hoster goes out of business.
I do not need a domain, I will use a dynamic dns hoster.
Contabo
netcup
I second that. I’m using Contabo for years without any problem.
Thirded.
They occasionally upgrade services for free, and rarely raise prices. They support a variety of base Linux images, including Arch (which, when I first switched to them, was rare). The control board is functional, and they’ve got all the features needed to implement VPN subnets, DKIM, etc. without having to use the DNS provider’s tools (assuming you are using a different provider). There’s also a command-line tool for managing your VPSes with them. Reasonably priced, the usual array of options from cheap to expensive, easy to add resources, and so on. Servers in the US and Germany (and maybe others? I haven’t added a VPS in a while).
When I first started self-hosting, not all of this was standard. I can’t say I’ve looked at the market in a few years, so perhaps their offerings are standard now, but when I moved from another hosting provider, Contabo stood out. I have been quite happy; perhaps the best thing I can say about them is that I haven’t had to contact their technical support in the past couple of years.
P.S. the only cautionary thing I’ll say it’s that they’re a German company. While you can never trust any VPS provider from a data security POV, Germany is a 5-eyes country, and so sits in my “least trustworthy” list; as in, they’re least likely to put up any resistance if one of the surveillance states asks for access to your data, or to tell you about it before they do. For me, this doesn’t matter, and frankly I don’t have enough knowledge to choose a better option if I needed it. Since I don’t, and since I’m not using my servers for anything that’s currently considered subversive, it isn’t yet a worry for me. But FYI.
They have servers in different countries as well
One of the best decisions I made, two years later. 💪