Django Hosting Survey
Jeff
hosting options. I know there has been a number of discussions on this
topic, and I have read most of them. However, seeing how quickly
things change in the web development / hosting world, I wanted to get
some opinions if the following summary still holds true.
The most useful information I have found on Django hosting was here:
http://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2008/jan/12/mt/
From this, and other sources, I believe the best hosting options to
be:
1. Web Faction - for those that want to get Django up and running as
quickly and easily as possible, using their automated setup.
OR
2. Slicehost - for those that want COMPLETE control of their hosting
environment. Only drawback (for some) is that everything needs to be
installed from scratch.
In the case of Slicehost, I am also curious if the 256 slice is
sufficient for most Django apps.
I appreciate any thoughts or comments.
Thanks!
Jeff
Raymond Cote
> >From this, and other sources, I believe the best hosting options to
> be:
>
> 1. Web Faction - for those that want to get Django up and running as
> quickly and easily as possible, using their automated setup.
>
>
us excellent service.
Currently have about a dozen customers up on WebFaction running Django
(or Plone).
True you don't have "complete control" as you would with Slicehost,
however, you do get shell access,
a private Apache instance, and the ability to run cron tasks.
Joshua Jonah
Michael Semcheski
> In the case of Slicehost, I am also curious if the 256 slice is
> sufficient for most Django apps.
You can definitely develop and deploy a small application on a 256MB
slice. Whether 256 is enough depends on the nature of your app, and
its usage. But, its very easy to bump up to a 512 or 1GB slice from
256. Also, you can bump back down to 256.
All in all, I'm very happy with my slice.
jonknee
> 2. Slicehost - for those that want COMPLETE control of their hosting
> environment. Only drawback (for some) is that everything needs to be
> installed from scratch.
>
> In the case of Slicehost, I am also curious if the 256 slice is
> sufficient for most Django apps.
>
you have running. Since you control it all it's up to you how much RAM
is available. Offloading stuff like email makes a difference (I used
Google Apps). And of course how you set things up, I went with nginx
up front proxying to Apache/Django when necessary. Another benefit of
something like Slicehost is if you start getting more traffic and need
more memory it's just a couple clicks away. Though it can be a time
sink to get everything set up in the first place.
Horst Gutmann
and each one takes about 30MB with one dedicated mod_wsgi daemon
process (and perhaps a couple of MBs more for servicing static files
through Apache and the database connection). So depending on the size
of your application, a 256MB slice should definitely give you at least
a good starting ground :-)
-- Horst
tupixo
One other thing to keep in mind about a VPS is that you have to
maintain the VPS yourself, which can be a pain in the long run (think
security patches).
Kevin.
Kenneth Gonsalves
> 1. Web Faction - for those that want to get Django up and running as
> quickly and easily as possible, using their automated setup.
go for 64 mb ram
>
> OR
>
> 2. Slicehost - for those that want COMPLETE control of their hosting
> environment. Only drawback (for some) is that everything needs to be
> installed from scratch.
>
> In the case of Slicehost, I am also curious if the 256 slice is
> sufficient for most Django apps.
it is
--
regards
KG
http://lawgon.livejournal.com
Anders Bergh
> environment. Only drawback (for some) is that everything needs to be
> installed from scratch.
I have two vps's from Linode, they're a lot like Slicehost but you get
more bang for the buck. For example, for $20 you get 256 at Slicehost,
but Linode gives you 320 MB. They also give you 2 GB more space. They
both have similar hardware (quad core servers, 64-bit). The "slices"
are 32-bit, but you can go with 64-bit if you want to. That's one of
the reasons why I switched.
--
Anders Bergh
Benjamin Buch
Am 06.10.2008 um 19:30 schrieb Jeff:
> I am about to begin a new Django project and I am currently evaluating
> hosting options.
I can recommend djangohosting (http://djangohosting.ch), at least if
you're looking for a host in europe...
It doesn't seem like you do, but I thought I should mention it anyway...
It's great for personal stuff, didn't do something big there (60MB
RAM, 1GB storage, 4€ per month, easy setup...)
benjamin
Masklinn
On 6 Oct 2008, at 19:30 , Jeff wrote:
> I am about to begin a new Django project and I am currently evaluating
> hosting options. I know there has been a number of discussions on this
> topic, and I have read most of them. However, seeing how quickly
> things change in the web development / hosting world, I wanted to get
> some opinions if the following summary still holds true.
I'd suggest checking http://djangofriendly.com/hosts/
Gour
Benjamin> I can recommend djangohosting (http://djangohosting.ch), at
Benjamin> least if you're looking for a host in europe... It doesn't
Benjamin> seem like you do, but I thought I should mention it anyway...
Benjamin> It's great for personal stuff, didn't do something big there
Benjamin> (60MB RAM, 1GB storage, 4€ per month, easy setup...)
Heh, nice to hear...I'm also considering to take it...
Is it OK for production site as well?
Sincerely,
Gour
--
Gour | Zagreb, Croatia | GPG key: C6E7162D
----------------------------------------------------------------
Jarek Zgoda
>>>>>> "Benjamin" == Benjamin Buch <benni...@gmx.de> writes:
>
> Benjamin> I can recommend djangohosting (http://djangohosting.ch), at
> Benjamin> least if you're looking for a host in europe... It doesn't
> Benjamin> seem like you do, but I thought I should mention it
> anyway...
>
> Benjamin> It's great for personal stuff, didn't do something big there
> Benjamin> (60MB RAM, 1GB storage, 4€ per month, easy setup...)
>
> Heh, nice to hear...I'm also considering to take it...
>
> Is it OK for production site as well?
I wouldn't go into production with shared hosting if you expect at
least moderate popularity. You'd end up paying more than dedicated
hosting would cost you (eg. at hetzner.de).
--
We read Knuth so you don't have to. - Tim Peters
Jarek Zgoda, R&D, Redefine
jarek...@redefine.pl
Benjamin Buch
Am 07.10.2008 um 15:49 schrieb Gour:
> Benjamin> I can recommend djangohosting (http://djangohosting.ch), at
> Benjamin> least if you're looking for a host in europe...
> Heh, nice to hear...I'm also considering to take it...
>
> Is it OK for production site as well?
I'm only hosting personal stuff there, so not much traffic...
As Jarek said, perhaps it's better to go with dedicated hosting if you
plan to have loads of traffic.
But you can always ask the folks at djangohosting what they think of
it directly, they are quite nice and answer quickly.
benjamin
James Matthews
Brandon Taylor
Setting up a Django app with their control panel couldn't be easier,
and their customer service is excellent.
Brandon Taylor
bTaylor Design
www.btaylordesign.com
Ross Dakin
I have the 256 plan and it's great. A few notes:
1) It is a time sink to set it up, but they have many tutorials online
(publicly available) that do a great job of holding your hand if you
aren't a Linux guru (like I'm not).
2) You'll want to fiddle with the Apache config a bit to get the
optimal number of children, max requests per child, etc. for your RAM.
3) I found it amazingly useful to write a new_site.sh script that
automates everything required to set up a new site (file structure,
Django commands, run sed on some nginx and Apache template config
files, etc.). This is actually a work in progress that seems to change
every time I realize there's a better way to do something than what
I'm doing.
Ross
NoviceSortOf
running Ubuntu server or some other distro?
Is 256 RAM sufficient for Ubuntu or should
one allow for more headroom?
I'm leaning towards the Slicehost or Lincode type solution.
Because in the past with frameworks and platforms we have
learned the hard way you need to be ready to move and move
fast whenever your hosting service (for whatever reason)
changes the rules of the game, or you hit a limitation.
Being able to rachet up the memory to the next level can
save a lot of headaches, and sometimes can prove an
instant cure, to problems that would otherwise require
re-coding or re-configuration.
Also it seems an easy matter these days to take a second
hand HD off the stack and mock up a production server
on an old machine then to duplicate that on something
like Slicehost or Linode . Ubuntu server seems the best
candidate for this.
I'm reluctant to work with djangohosting.ch and
the entry Webfaction plans because we have had
problems with how subleased space works with
virtual hosting.
For instance
wwww.mysite.com
may not equal
mysite.com and/or the sites IP number
may not take you to the site.
This gets important when you are setting up rollover scenarios, using
3rd party monitoring/dns services... at least that is where we have
had
snags, but I can imagine there other issues.
Hani
Finder
the 256 with lighttpd and my forums, email, etc on the 512 with apache
So far Django has still preformed great and when I ran load tests,
lighttpd with Django handled the load very well. We're up to about
3,000 hits per day no problem (I know...not many, but still as much as
typical personal sites get). Php-cgi on lighttpd seemed to hit its cap
and started throwing random errors though which is why I moved it off
on apache.
One nice thing is that if you find yourself needing more, you can load
balance...just get another slice, mirror your django, set up one as
the database server, change lighttpd configuration to point to two
IP's, and you're now load balancing between two django servers with
one lighttpd. (same with apache I believe)
Or increase memory and harddisk quickly if required
Ross Dakin
bandwidth between them (new Slicehost feature).
@NoviceSortof: Yes, I am running a Hardy install with 256 MB. My
typical 'top' breakdown looks like:
- 55% Apache (prefork)
- 10% nginx
- 5% mysql
- 5% postgres
- 5% et al.
So my allocation is around 80%, but 'free' shows the actual usage
(buffers/cache) to hover around 50%. I'm not entirely sure how those
two metrics relate.
Wes Winham
doesn't sound like you are), Amazon's EC2 (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/)
is amazing. If you start there, you can stay there right up to the
point that you're bigger than amazon.com :) It has the same
disadvantages of slicehost or linode as far as needing to set
everything up yourself, but if you're going to be spending anything
close to $70 on slicehost or linode, you'd be doing yourself a huge
favor by starting with EC2.
Hope that helps
-Wes