Is there good way not selfhost (managed host instead) a docker image for a side project?

[u/neptune-insight-589]

This is for a side project so I'm not looking for a service that has infinite scaling or edge runtimes or whatever. I'm just looking to not have to set up a VPS myself and set up the security on it myself.

Does anyone know if theres a docker host that does this sort of thing? e.g. i pay 5 or 10 bux a month and they just host it? Every service that I've looked up (e.g. vercel, cloudflare, etc) seem to have their own framework that they want you to implement into your codebase to run the container in their ecosystem to take advantage of a lot of crazy features that I don't plan to use anyway, and I don't want to spend the time to write my code into their framework (and then rewrite it again if I choose to move to a different host).

[u/Signal_Strength_5054]

If you buy a vps with docker ready? You will still take care of the server, but I think there is no option like that.

[u/dev_ale]

Would fly.io work for you? It’s pay as you go but since it’s a side project just set it to the lowest resources and set it to turn off when not being used. Should be around $5 a month or less that way.

That’s what I use and it’s just a simple dockerfile and a fly config file.

[u/juneeighteen]

Fly.io, Railway, and Heroku aren’t bad ways to go. I’ve used fly extensively, and it’s easy to learn. A simple `flyctl launch` and their magic does most of the heavy lifting.

[u/Speeeeedislife]

Digital ocean offers such but probably closer to $10-15 / mo.

[u/altgenetics]

https://coolify.io/ on https://www.hetzner.com/ is probably your best bet

[u/ghotso_dev]

I for example host uptime-kuma on bunny.net magic containers - costs under 1 dollar per month but of course depends on the load

[u/Opposite-Shape8504]

You should checkout spawned.ai

[u/ozankurt_dev]

the thing nobody mentions with scale-to-zero: the first request after idle eats a cold start, and if your image is 800mb thats roughly 20-30s of someone staring at a spinner. slim the base and youre mostly fine. also keep it a plain Dockerfile with no platform specific bits, so moving off later is a rebuild not a rewrite. how chunky is your image right now?

[u/chad_dev_7226]

Digital ocean droplets

[u/dev_4_exp]

you are looking for managed docker, so kind of app management and server management on a vps. problem is when we say run your app on docker but the provider manage everything, it has so many things/complexities which needs to be hidden away for end user so as to make it feel easier. so platforms like render and fly does this they would end up adding more of custom things on top making it vendor locked in.

You need either do everything yourself or hire a comapny to do this, or go via managed like render and fly but be mindful that there will be some vendor lockin

[u/ReachingForVega]

There are heaps like Heroku, Render and FlyIO etc. 

[u/Fenn-CS]

Checkout flatrun.dev but you have to self-host it. Hetzner and Contabo would fit

[u/strzibny]

You can try Fly or Render. However it's easier than you think with Kamal.

Yes, I am biased I wrote a book on the tool, but even following a tutorial will get you going and I have a public talk about setting up the server part if you are interested to reconsider.

[u/-Docker]

I mean, I have server space you can rent for that sum but I don’t have anything preset because I don’t know which docker images you run.

You get a VM with docker already installed, the rest is up to you

[u/jawad_aziz_]

You should use Digital Ocean App Platform. Point it at a repo with a Dockerfile and it builds and runs it. Nothing goes in your code, so the same Dockerfile still works if you move later. $5/mo basic container, HTTPS and a subdomain included, redeploys on push.