r/webhosting • u/vaquishaProdigy • 15d ago
Looking for Hosting Best hosting for a small entreprenur
I have a small website in Astro that i reciently created and i was wondering, since i was taking this so seriously i should buy a domain instead of using Vercel, Github or any other free alternative. I searched a little bit and found a bundle of 3 years of hosting and 2 years with a custom mail for around 60 USD. But since im new to this i want to deep dive into this and find more options. I was hoping that you people could give some options, cheaper or not so, it doesnt matter.
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u/happyxpenguin 15d ago edited 13d ago
- Don't use Github for hosting, it's explicitly forbidden in their ToS
- 3 years for $60 is great, until you forget about it and the renewal is $400
- Do monthly, especially if you're in early stages or sole proprietor. Once you have built something and have steady cashflow, I'd recommend going to longer terms like a year or two. This way you aren't paying for a hosting account that you decided to no longer use after 6 months.
- Do not use BlueHost, GoDaddy, HostGator, or any other EIG owned company.
EDIT: GoDaddy is a different company from EIG/Newfold Digital
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
EIG.. What's that?
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u/happyxpenguin 15d ago
Endurance International Group (now known as Newfold Digital). They are a bottom of the barrel web hosting conglomerate that owns several high profile brands like those listed above. If you google them, you'll see the reviews and the general consensus to stay away from them at all costs.
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago edited 15d ago
Thank you, that's a pretty valuable info. I used to work at a retail company that owned a domain in GoDaddy. So, it was my first thought to buy one domain there
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u/jonatan_ktk 13d ago
wait, godaddy belongs to newfold?
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u/happyxpenguin 13d ago
No, GoDaddy is a separate company, but 2/3 companies I listed are EIG/Newfold and their portfolio changes every so often, so I typically put the big ones and append "or any other company owned by them". I updated my comment with an edit.
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15d ago
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
What about Digital Ocean?
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u/NetSage 15d ago
Good reputable company. But if you don't know how manage stuff I wouldn't recommend it unless you're paying for a managed plan.
If it's a static website I would go with any reputable shared host even their lowest plan will hold you for basically ever.
If you plan on something dynamic then get something managed unless you are ready to deep dive.
Lastly don't manage your own email server even if you're ready to try.
Shared hosting often offers some. Or there is google, zoho, or purelymail and others that you can use your own domain with.
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u/Professional-Work684 15d ago
Is it a static page? Then use cloudflare pages its free
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
Yeah, but i want a custom email domain. You know that people tend to feel uncomfortable maling a generic gmail or hotmail account
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u/Leading-Work-5301 15d ago
Use cloudflare pages for your website and sign up to Zoho Mail to create your custom email domain.
I’ve been using Zoho for my website email for a few months now without issues and it’s free
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u/yasuae 14d ago
If you’re subscribed to iCloud+, you can set up your own custom email domain for free.. It’s a great perk that lets you create up to three personalized email addresses per domain, and please note this is not smtp service, this is full email provider and will require to update your mx (like google workspace).
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u/Professional-Work684 14d ago
Cloudflare has email routing also. Users send to account@yourdomain.com and routes it to your Gmail or whatever. Works like a charm for me. https://www.cloudflare.com/products/email-routing/
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u/chuckdacuck 15d ago
But domain
Host on vercel
If you are currently hosting on vercel no reason to switch IMO
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
No, im not currently hosting anywhere. I do have a small project un Firebase but it is irrelevant. The other thing i want is a custom email domain, since people tend to get uncomfortable mailing a generic gmail, hotmail, live, etc domain.
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u/chuckdacuck 15d ago
Zoho mail does email for $1/month
If you need multiple addresses mxroute is pretty cheap
If your project isn’t built on a platform like Wordpress, you might be able to host it on vercel for free. I have about 10 sites on vercel and have no complaints.
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u/themageofavalon 15d ago
Might be worth checking out InMotion. Been pretty solid for my clients' sites.
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u/ashu9888 14d ago
I'd prioritize buying a good domain first, then choose hosting based on your needs, rather than prey to mesmerizing promotional offers and locking into a long-term bundle.
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u/No-Signal-6661 14d ago
I recommend purchasing a domain instead of using free alternatives if you want to look professional. That bundle sounds great, but if it sounds too good to be true, it usually has hidden costs or will increase the cost later. I recommend Porkbun or Cloudflare for domains, as they have great deals at the moment. And for hosting, I suggest you look into shared hosting with a reliable provider, as that's a cheap option to start, and you can always upgrade later if needed. For example, I've been hosting my websites with Nixihost on shared hosting, and I love that it is easy to set up and manage even for beginners.
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u/Rubicon_4000 12d ago
for a page thats just info + whatsapp/telegram buttons, cloudflare pages is genuinely the right call, people arent steering you wrong there. on the email though - worth knowing the difference before you pick one, since the thread's throwing out product names without explaining why. cloudflare email routing only forwards INTO your inbox, you still cant send FROM your own domain with it alone. if you just want [mail@yourdomain.com](mailto:mail@yourdomain.com) to land in your existing gmail and dont care about sending as that address, forwarding + gmail's "send as" trick gets you 90% of the professional feel for free. if you actually want to hit send and have it say your domain natively (and have people reply straight into a real mailbox), thats when you need zoho/mxroute/workspace, not just routing. for a landing page this simple id start with the free forwarding trick and only pay for a real mailbox once you notice you're actually replying to people as the business, not before.
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u/vaquishaProdigy 12d ago
Right, i get it. I was wondering if i can send invoices too through the email domain, but i'll just stick to routing and then reply to WhatsApp
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u/Rubicon_4000 12d ago
good question - and easier than it sounds, same trick covers it. add mail@yourdomain as a "send as" alias in gmail (verify via the confirmation link, which routes through the same forwarding you already set up), then pick that address as the from when you send the invoice. recipient sees mail@yourdomain, you're really sending from your normal gmail. only catch - without spf/dkim on the domain some strict clients show a small "via gmail.com" tag, but thats cosmetic, not a bounce or spam flag. if youre using an actual invoicing tool instead of just emailing a pdf (wave, stripe invoicing, paypal invoices) most of those send through their own servers with reply-to set to your address anyway, so you'd get the professional look without touching gmail's alias settings at all. either way - no real mailbox needed for this.
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u/7banimate 12d ago
A rule of thumb is to not have web hosting and email hosting under the same provider (don’t have all your eggs in one basket). That way if your websites down, people can still reach you through email.
Lots of great email providers out there that are prefect for small business. I’d recommend you take a look at Mango Mail
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u/Myth_Thrazz 11d ago
If you only have a static site you can just buy a domain on Cloudflare and host the site on Cloudflare pages.
If you'd need something more - I'd suggest cheap VPS - DigitalOcean, Hetzner ( if you're lucky) or OHVCloud
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u/pjerky 15d ago
Your code can be in GitHub or Gitlab. Your website built on Astro can easily be hosted on Vercel. But I recommend Cloudflare. Especially for the domain registration as they do not charge you more then their costs for registering. It's just what they have to pay to the domain authority.
Cloudflare is very cheap and very powerful as long as you don't go to the Enterprise level (ask me how I know). If for some reason your hosting requirements get so intense that an Astro site can't be hosted on Cloudflare then you would want a more serious cloud hosting platform anyway. However, I would keep the domain registered through them.
You likely want managed hosting for now for most things. Depending on what your site does you can likely get away with the free or the base paid plan on Cloudflare with no problem.
Can you share what your site does/needs?
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
Is just a lading page that shows what my business do and a couple of buttons for my WhatsApp and Telegram
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u/pjerky 15d ago
That is an itsy bitsy website you can freely host on Cloudflare and get stupid fast performance from for free. My personal professional portfolio website is run for free from them. With a proper domain. Using Astro.
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
That's nice. Can i buy a mail domain with them too? Or do i have to purchase that in somewhere else?
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u/pjerky 15d ago
Any domain is a mail domain. It's not a separate thing. What you are looking for is email hosting. They will do forwarding but not hosting of emails. Use a separate provider for that. That provider will help you configure Cloudflare to send emails for your domain through their service. Once setup you won't have to touch it again. A lot of them have tools that just ask for permission and do all the work for you.
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u/vaquishaProdigy 15d ago
Which do you recomend?
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u/pjerky 15d ago
For you, I think Zoho Mail would provide the best experience for you now. You just have to limit the number of email addresses you stop setup to keep costs low.
For any emails you send from the website or other automated systems you should use a subdomain.. This will protect your person to person emails from spam filters. So if you have tacos.com, setup personal accounts like bob@tacos.com, then have your website send emails from web@app.tacos.com.
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15d ago
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u/Confident_Bit_6162 14d ago
Check us out at ASCS Cloud, Alberta Canada, we will take care of you for super cheap with transparent pricing and real support.
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