I'm considering using AWS for the infrastructure of my side project, but I've heard some really scary stories about people racking up bills of $50k+ due to misconfigurations or leaked keys. Although I know there are safeguards I can put in place to minimize risks, the thought of waking up to a huge bill, especially if I get DDoSed, is really unsettling. Plus, AWS doesn't allow for hard budget limits.
I have experience with Firebase as a backend but am now looking for infrastructure that I can run locally as much as possible. I'm wondering if there's a common stack that solo developers prefer?
Currently, I'm considering:
* Fly.io for a virtual machine and running containers on it.
* Caddy for TLS termination and serving static files.
* Dart/Shelf for the backend.
* SQLite for the database.
* Backblaze for blob storage.
* Namecheap for domain hosting.
With this setup, I should be able to keep costs under $50 a year and have hard budget limits. I'm aware that scaling may become necessary if my project garners more traffic, but I'll handle that if it comes up.
3 Answers
I’m all for the VPS route as well. Setting it up and securing it can be a great learning experience, and you'll have total control with a predictable monthly fee. You really can't go wrong with this option!
If costs are your main concern, I’d recommend going with a Hetzner VPS. It might be a bit tricky to set up, but at least you won't face surprise charges beyond your monthly rate.
AWS does include some basic DDoS protection with their services for free. They also have cost estimation tools to help you avoid common financial pitfalls. And while it may not be obvious, you can set hard cost limits on AWS, it just requires some manual setup.
If you're looking for alternatives, check out Oracle Cloud. They offer two free instances for anyone who signs up. Just know that you might have to migrate to a new config every few years, but I’ve been using my instances for almost a decade without issues.
Have you had any bad experiences with Oracle? I’ve been eyeing their free tier, but I’ve heard some horror stories about them shutting down accounts and instances.