Website Hosting - and Future Directions?

TidBITS Talk
1

Good evening!

I’ve got a website issue. For many years, I’ve maintained a website documenting Scout patches and Scout history–one entry point is:

http://www.tegularius.org/patches/broadcreekpatches.html

For over 20 years, this has been hosted by what’s now called iBiblio, a service at UNC Chapel Hill that’s as old as the web, if not older. I worked with the service in the early days (it was originally SunSite, then Metalab, before becoming iBiblio) and I’ve been happily grandfathered into being allowed to keep my site running there at no charge.

Recently they had a major infrastructure change. Since then, when my index pages try to load a bunch of thumbnail images, they pretty quickly hit a limit and start to get “429 - Too many requests” errors. I’ve tried opening a support ticket there, but it doesn’t seem as if they’re interested in making the necessary parameter changes that would allow these pages to work.

The web pages themselves are hand-coded HTML and CSS, plus image files. The total size is about 1.5GB. I have a full copy of the website on my computer; to update, I update the local files and use Transmit to connect to the server via SFTP and synchronize the local file tree with the server file tree.

My first question is – does anyone know of a reasonably-priced service for static web hosting that supports a similar approach: point my domain at a server folder, use SFTP to dump a folder tree full of HTML, CSS, and images into that server folder, and stand back and let it work?

It sounds like it might be slightly more complicated but possible to have a similar workflow using storage/hosting from Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, or the equivalent Google service. Is anyone familiar with that process?

Alternatively, I could try to migrate the whole thing to some more dynamic service, in the hope of being able to more easily expand, add blog-type content, and so on. But I’m not sure what would be the best strategy to move in that direction – and until this server problem cropped up, the static site was doing a good job of meeting the needs of the people who wanted to use it.

Any thoughts?

Dave

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If you’re comfortable synchronizing with git instead of SFTP, then GitHub Pages might do what you want. It’s free and straightforward, but it’s git and Microsoft.

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Many ISPs and Domain registrars offer small hosting plans with user accounts. Have you checked if yours has anything on offer?

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I’ve been using Kualo for years and have been very happy. Their basic hosting would easily support your existing workflow, and also support most dynamic CMSes should you wish to explore that in the future. Cost is $10/mo or $100/yr. Support has been excellent every time I’ve needed anything – responsive and technically knowledgable, they don’t just fob you off with some scripted answer. ssh (and therefore sftp) access is a standard feature of the account.

To give you some idea of what you can do, I currently host my and several other family member’s email, have a small static website (which I would update with SFTP), run a CardDAV server, and run FreshRSS as my RSS sync service. A single shared hosting account can support multiple domain names, so I also have a couple other websites hosted there, one static, one running WordPress. However I haven’t actually updated any of my sites in several years :grimacing:

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I use that exact workflow for static sites hosted on AWS. Once you get over the setup learning curve it’s fast and reliable. And much less expensive from most dedicated web hosting services. Google “how to host a static site on AWS” and make sure you refer to the most current tutorial available.( It used to be a lot more complicated than it is today.)

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6

I have the same workflow. I use Seamonkey to edit local web pages because it edits WYSIWYG but is changing the underlying HTML Then I use Transmit to upload the changed/new web pages and images to my website.

I pay for web hosting by Site5, which includes a domain name and multiple email addresses for that domain name. It is relatively expensive but seems reliable and support is good:

Like the OP, I started with a “free” web hosting service by my Australian ISP but several years ago they closed down that service. I then subscribed to another hosting service but they were bought out by Site5.

Recently I converted my web pages to SSL (i.e https://…) to improve user friendliness (no longer indicates “not secure”) and improve chances of them being listed by search engines. Site5 charges an extra annual fee for this.

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This past week I’ve been assisting in the shut down of a business. I was told I could take anything I wanted so nabbed a Synology1517+ which is a 7 or 8 year old 5 bay NAS.

I was amazed how easy it makes setting up a web server, domains, mail and even free SSL certs with Let’s Encrypt. I’m going to use it to run a couple of small static sites from home (I have a 1GB unlimited, connection).

I’m not sure how much the smaller one or two bays NASes are but it might be something to consider as it would be a one off purchase if you have a decent net connection.

8

We’ve been using the Pair Network for over 39 years. And their monthly pricing still starts at $3.99.

In addition to the pricing, Pair has very excellent backup, and their help services are also excellent and never had very long, or even plain old long waits.

Pair also has a number of free webinars that keeps growing. If you want to, or already use Wordpress or any of its competitors, Pair makes it very, very easy.

It’s well worth checking out.

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A handy tip - thank you. I now have a Synergy NAS so will look into setting it up as a host and transferring my domain there. I don’t get much traffic so my internet plan should be OK.

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Can anyone point me to advice about web hosting on a NAS connected to home wifi? I am concerned about the network being more exposed. It may be better to keep paying for a hosting service.

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On the face of it, Amazon S3 (or a compatible service, like Wasabi) is exactly what you want here: cheap as chips, pay for what you use, and redundant plus tools already available for syncing changes. But this only works for a static site, of course; if you wanted to expand, you’d be looking at running a real or virtual server to handle dynamic requests, at which point it’s reasonable to ask whether an all-in-one plan mightn’t be the better option.

And if anyone would rather not expose their home Internet connections then by all means don’t: either use a CDN like CloudFlare to front yourself, or just run on a server outside your home network. CloudFlare Tunnel is exciting tech if you’re willing to grapple with it, otherwise it’s probably best to let the experts help you out with something more managed, at least on the hosting side of things. A NAS can indeed be an option but you must keep it updated and reduce exposure by only exposing the ports required (port forwarding) and you must understand that if the box gets compromised then an attacker could theoretically attack internal hosts which, though they ought to be secure, may not be depending on how disciplined you are about vetting devices that join your network for safety. If that doesn’t sound like fun to you, just don’t. It’s not the end of the world, especially for a public website.

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Pair.com will do exactly what you need. Just choose their standard account with Shared Hosting. https://www.pair.com. It’s less than $10 per month. We have used them for the past decade with sites large and small, simple and incredibly complex, and they have been great with all of them.

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Another post recommending Pair. I have been with them for over 24 years and they have been great.

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Pair Networks was very recently sold by Liberated Syndication to Your.Online, so it may not stay good. I’ve never used Pair, and don’t directly knew anything specific about your.online, but sales of popular services, especially when the service may not have had much say in the purchase, don’t usually seem to work out well for long.

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/08/22/pair-networks-sold-to-your-online/

If I did use pair, I’d probably start the jump ship process soon. your.online has this to say about themselves:

“Our teams of local experts provide highly standardized managed services to high-intent customers to reach their full online potential. We cherish our successful track record in acquiring, developing, and empowering strong local brands to lead their markets.”

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15

I’ve used DreamHost for years/decades. Not the fastest provider, but it’s never gone down that I’ve noticed or had any kind of security issue. If it’s a low traffic site, their shared plan is more than enough, think it’s $3/month which includes a custom domain iirc.

That would also support Wordpress and other CMSes if you wanted to upgrade in the future, but I use it for static sites sftp’ed using bbedit mostly.

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Hmm … DreamHost has some special deals on at the moment. Very tempting!

Let’s hope they are not targeted by a slick IT company.