PS: I have no experience with VPS or dedicated hosts. I’m still researching about them.

Check out Linode Virtual Servers: http://www.linode.com/

We offer more RAM at the same price point as our competitors. We also have three locations to choose from, including a California facility that should offer good throughput and lower latency to India.

If you still want to go for shared hosting though, I would recommend http://www.NearlyFreeSpeech.net from personal experience. Unlike most other shared hosting providers, they are a pay-as-you-go kind of service, so you pay for only what you use (bandwidth, space etc.) For this reason, they also turn out to be much cheaper for less trafficked sites. Moreover, they do not suffer from a lot of the disadvantages of shared hosting mentioned in the post (for example, scalability to some extent is not a problem with them due to their unique architecture.)

I was checking Slicehost site for their VPS plans. As mentioned by you, it looks really good and affordable. Support for rails apps too is good.

The only problem I could see is, their VPS doesn’t seem to be a managed VPS. A “not-much-into-it” kind of user like me would prefer managed VPS options so that I can really concentrate on other aspects of the startup without worrying too much about servers.

“Don’t host in US unless the ping time is really important to you .. in other words if Anand’s concerns apply to you ” should be

“Don’t host in India ……

@Anand: Depends on what you are trying to do .. if you are doing VOIP or something, I am sure latency would matter .. for a site like ours, it does not really matter

For rails hosting, RAM matters quite a bit … so watch out for that …

Regards
Prateek

How important it is to choose a hosting provider close to your target audience? Does network latency really play a devil’s role if the server is in US?

Are there any specifics one must look at before making a choice to host RoR application?

Which are the good hosting services in India? I am currently dealing with ZNetIndia and they are good but have only shared or dedicated hosting. No VPS option…

A couple of years back I had a terrible experience with Space2Let (now known as InternetWorldWide). Those guys were so bad. Their servers were down most of the time. Finally I ended up losing my domain to them. They just hijacked it (refused to transfer to someone else). Not that that domain name was of any value to others but still I couldn’t do anything. It will be great if someone does a post on protecting domains as well.

However, I am taking all basic precautions for that (based on what I learnt by research and talking to others).

I would have loved to help, but ASP is not my kind.

Just one thing, the ASP world tends to be a little different than the Open Source world. So, be careful when you choose the host. Make sure about what server you use. Windows OS is best suited for running an ASP app. Slicehost does not have a windows OS. You can check out with the others as well.

Experiment = Idea and doing it.
I suppose experiment means that you have a great new idea and you go accordingly (some sort of planning does go in that). If that’s not the case, then I’m really not aware of any good/ successful startup.

And you yourself said that there is a backup plan..right ?? That’s what I’m talking about…you have a backup plan…and there are obvious symptoms that your app is indeed growing. So, there is some time to switch hosts. All, I was pointing at was that considering the setup time to be a judging factor for good hosts, is not a very good point. There are tons of them apart from that to be talkin about.

If you are trying to get all the juice out from a shared server and then switch to a VPS when you reach the limit, then that’s always a dangerous option.

I’ll do more research on this and get in touch with you if need more help. Thanks once again.

Let ashish decide about the review post .. otherwise in general http://webhostingtalk.com has good reviews .. its good to look there before you decide on anything

I dont think one can plan for mega traffic in the first place..and most of the shared servers’ ads are very misleading (pt. very well justified in this post) – cpacity planning doesn’t happen in the initial days and that’s why its important to keep a backup plan.

Infact, I’d like to see the next version of this post comparing all the vps servers (prateek or anybody else?)

I can understand .. I too always work in budget constraints .. Don’t go for shared hosting though

Why don’t you pick the basic plan from VpsFarm or Slicehost (you can research more about it… i think both are priced at $20 a month). Pick something with atleast 256 MB RAM. You would know on your development machine how much RAM your app uses. In general the OS would need about 150 MB of RAM (basic stuff). So if your app uses under 100 MB, go for a 256 MB VPS …

You can always upgrade later too

Don’t worry too much about scaling right away … Try reading the “Getting Real” book at

http://gettingreal.37signals.com/

Regards
Prateek

I am having very serious thoughts after reading the above comments. Frankly speaking, I have no idea of how much traffic the website is going to get and had always been thinking of starting with shared hosting.

Sanjay, Prateek, any advise for me as I still have time? The website runs on ASP.NET.

Hmm..well…now that you pointed this out, you should change the title of the post as well…
“Hosting Tips for Startups – Shared or VPS? What’s the right choice?”

to something like

“Hosting Tips for Hobbyist / experimental Startups – Shared or VPS? What’s the right choice?”

No offense, but the title is a little misleading.

The memory thing is somewhat tricky. I go to Nehru Place, and I get a RAM for 1500, and the same RAM (this time corsair or kingston) costs me 3000. I’m not sure of what to say. Just that it’s more of your app’s and your decision. If they are both happy with the host, then great, else atleast the app should be happy.

The post starts as saying “What started as an experiment/hobby, turned into serious gold and Muziboo has been able to get users from across the world, to collaborate and create music.”

I guess that explains it …

do you have any take on the “double RAM for same price thing?” ?

Also in general several other people I know did this mistake of starting on the shared hosting. I guess a lot of us don’t come with a lot of experience

Regards
Prateek

And then if you think the app is killer enough to get a million visitors overnight then the person will be better buying a dedicated server rather than a VPS. Plus, aren’t there enough symptoms beforehand that the app is growing; I bet there are unless ofcourse it’s an orkut or facebook app, where everything increases exponentially.

Anyways, you’re right that 2 or 3 weeks is a long enough wait. But, I just think that it’s not a good idea to make a generalized statement just because of few people who start off their app from a shared host. It’s not a hosts problem if the developer is doing something like this

P.S – I think we lost track of the main point of this post :p

“Well, I agree that Slicehost had a lot of waiting time earlier (usually about 1-2 weeks), but then if you are developing an app, there is a lot of thought and planning going in (ideally). Why would someone just jump into hosting an app instantly (did he not figure this out earlier that the app is going to be on the web !!). Just saying because this is not a point to be used for discrimination.”

Take a second guess

Most times you startout on a shared hosting plan and then when you are live and your site goes down every now and then, you look around for a better provider. In that case 2 or 3 weeks of waiting time can be really bad (considering a few people use your app .. if not then its fine).

Regards
Prateek

As for hosting, I suppose the days of VPS are over (with clustering by MT, Mosso and Joyent getting super popular) for big apps, although smaller apps can (and should) use VPS. We use Slicehost for our upcoming app, and so far I’m loving it

Tried a few other shared hosting and VPS (for personal use), but Slicehost has been good and highly recommended by a lot of successful app janta

Yes, true, that’s why I asked if it was intentionally left out

I never debated the RAM/cost ratio, so no arguments there!

However i did not find any instruction there which is slicehost specific. Lets say you want to setup a debian etch system. You can find tons of resources on the net http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=YIl&q=set+up+debian+etch+VPS&btnG=Search&meta=

Finding an article on the VPS Provider’s site is good (you can always find it elsewhere too) but paying double the money month after month (esp if you want 1 or 2 GB RAM) is quite high. But again, personal choice

Regards
Prateek

I think slicehost now gives you the VPS instantly. Back in October there was a long waiting time. In fact this issue has been discussed before on the Bangalore Ruby User Group too.

I am going through the community documentation right now for slicehost but in case of a VPS (where you install everything yourself), can you not get the same support from say a debian/ubuntu forum? What I am trying to say is that the community for a VPS procider should have the same issues as community for another VPS provider (unless slicehost preinstalls stuff for you)

@Neel: This is not an easy calculation to do I think. You should see the number of requests per sec you are doing on your dev machine and try to arrive at some number. You can look at your logs and see the worst case request per sec you may need. You can also look at ntop for some numbers.

Regards
Prateek

Can you also throw some light on how you determine the server capacity you will need based on your website traffic? For example, if I am expecting 10,000 visitors on my website, then what will be a decent configuration.