I'm a student wanting to dive into DevOps and cloud skills, but I need a super cheap server. I'm talking about options that are basically free or just a dollar a month. I've tried using Oracle before, but they cancelled my server without any notice. What are your recommendations for affordable solutions that could help me practice?
4 Answers
If you're looking for the absolute cheapest way to practice, using your own hardware is the way to go. Consider running a local Minikube cluster or grabbing an old machine. You won't have to spend any money, and you can play with all the cloud-native tools.
Try the small instance classes in AWS, like the t4g types. Those can only cost you a few cents per hour. Just remember to destroy your instances after you're done practicing to save money. I learned a ton with the AWS free tier, which lasts for a whole year!
I had a bad experience with the AWS free tier. I spun up a couple of nano instances, and pretty much lost my credits within a day and ended up with charges. I’d suggest looking for a cheap VPS instead.
Check out the LowEndBox website for some great deals on VPS. I'm currently using OVH; it's reliable and cheap and has given me good service.
LowEndBox is definitely the way to go for finding deals!
If you're a student, the Azure student plan is fantastic. You get $100 worth of credits to use. Just be cautious with Kubernetes, as it can consume your credits fast!
I got 200€ to test AKS, and it went through my credits like crazy.
I have an old laptop, but I’m unsure how to get a public IPv4 address. Any thoughts on that?