Assuming we stick with the current linode set up, running us2 on the
same linode is perhaps simplest. Whether that changes the cost, as far
as I could tell from glancing at
https://www.linode.com/pricing/ ,
depends on how close we are to the limits for RAM, storage, etc. Perhaps
linode has an admin page which shows where we stand, and/or logging into
us2 and observing the job run can help estimate?
I'm potentially in for some sort of monthly donation. Any ideas on
whether something like
https://opencollective.com/ is overkill for
managing the money? At first glance it would appear to make it easier to
do things like make it possible for all the donors to see what is being
spent on what and the like, but I've never set one up so I don't know
whether it is a lot of hassle (compared with something more informal,
which I suppose is the alternative).
As for dynamic versus static, I suppose it is to some extent a tradeoff
between RAM/CPU on the dynamic side, versus storage on the static side,
but even if I was sure how those tradeoffs might work out (I'm not),
seems like we should not expect a change of that magnitude to happen
quickly (just in terms of the software development involved - whether
that is entirely new code to generate the pages, or even just a way to
add enough duck tape to make the existing code to function dynamically,
assuming that's even feasible).
Another approach - which I suppose has at least some of the same issues
in terms of writing new code or at least scripts, investigation, etc,
would be pushing static HTML to Github Pages (
https://docs.github.com/en/pages for those not familiar). I suppose this
would involve taking the job which now runs on us2 and having it push
the pages to a git repository which is for the purpose of holding the
generated HTML. I know our generated HTML is pretty big (am I
remembering 2Gbyte correctly and if so has it changed since then?) and
perhaps there are limitations of github pages (or similar services)
which mean this wouldn't work, and I think it falls in the same bucket
as a dynamic site, in terms of being a change in approach.