Xenforo moving from namecheap shared to digital ocean, aws or?

[Artonn]

Hi. So I'm quite new in this field, and trying to find the best and cheapest solution to host my xenforo forum in an optimal place.

I've come around issues with my emails landing in spam, and my website sometimes getting the error "XF\Db\Exception: Too many connections ", and come to realize that perhaps it's a better idea to run on a vps or some kind of cloud solution. There's also been some plugins I couldn't use because I was unable to install things like pngquant.

So I'm just seeking advice on where to start? I've heard good things about DigitalOcean and the prices won't be crazy. I was hoping to maximum pay a 50 usd a month. So far I know I need something I can run some type of linux on, storage and am mail service kinda like SES from AWS. And maybe somekind of mysql database, which is either just hosted on the cloud/vps or a seperate service. I'm not sure on what would be the best.

I'm also interested in know how I can move my forum from a shared hosting(currently using namecheap stellar plus) to the new "place" in safe and smooth manner.

Thank you.

 

[Miri]

If you have the option, why not use XenForo Cloud?

 

[Artonn]

If you have the option, why not use XenForo Cloud?

I was hoping to get something cheaper than 50 usd, I see that digital ocean can be setup for 6 usd. I also already have a standalone licence for xenforo.

 

[Miri]

I don't want to influence your choices in any way, and I hope others can advise you on what you ask for, but for 10 bucks more, at least you don't have to deal with syncing all those services. Then it should not be underestimated that everything is centralized and unified and what's more it is all built specifically for the XF.

 

[fly]

I was hoping to get something cheaper than 50 usd, I see that digital ocean can be setup for 6 usd. I also already have a standalone licence for xenforo.

If you're comfortable with running your own server, get a droplet, install Centminmod, and go to town.

FWIW, if you start with AWS instead, you can pretty much get hosting free for a year with their Free Tier.
Disclosure: I'm an independent AWS consultant.

 

[koraldon]

How much traffic do you have? What is the forum size?

 

[Artonn]

How much traffic do you have? What is the forum size?

I actually have some data, it's not a lot.

 

[Artonn]

If you're comfortable with running your own server, get a droplet, install Centminmod, and go to town.

FWIW, if you start with AWS instead, you can pretty much get hosting free for a year with their Free Tier.
Disclosure: I'm an independent AWS consultant.

I've run an AWS Instance before, and using a terminal. So I'm not a complete stranger, the options and stuff you can tie together just overwhelms me.

Already used my 1 year free, it also seems quite expensive to run AWS.

 

[fly]

I've run an AWS Instance before, and using a terminal. So I'm not a complete stranger, the options and stuff you can tie together just overwhelms me.

Already used my 1 year free, it also seems quite expensive to run AWS.

You could always sign up for a new account for your new project. Also, you could look into Lightsail, which is a direct competitor to Digital Ocean.

edit: By far the most expensive part of AWS is bandwidth, which can be defrayed somewhat for forums by using Cloudflare (free) CDN. But with your bandwidth usage, it will be next to nothing.

 

[FTL]

To add to what @Miri has suggested, I've been on XF Cloud for over a year and it's been bulletproof with zero downtime. My forum has very good performance and the full suite is included, along with zero server hassle. Just pay your monthly sub and away you go, instant forum.

Check out the pricing, here:

Get started with XenForo

Choose a solution to suit your needs

xenforo.com

 

[⭐ Alex ⭐]

I've come around issues with my emails landing in spam,

You can solve this without switching hosts by settings up DKIM with your mail provider / domain, and sending email as your domain.

I suggest the protonmail Mail Essentials for business plan so that you can send and receive mail using your domain into your mailbox and XF can also send mail using SMTP.

50 usd a month

That's a large budget. Vultr we can see starts at $3.50 per month (or $2.50 per month if you are fine with using ipv6) (0.5GB), Then digital ocean at $4 (0.5GB), and linode at $5 (1 GB)

aws starts at $3.70 / month for compute (0.5GB) plus $0.80 storage = $4.50.

That puts aws at most expensive, vultr the cheapest smallest, and linode bang for buck for 1 GB.

If you want to save every last penny on hosting while still having two boxes you could do two 0.5 GB IPv6 boxes on vultr, one for forum, one for database. Use cloudflare so that anyone can access your website with ipv4 or ipv6.

That puts you at $2.5 + $2.5 + $7 (email) = $12 USD per month. And if you need a vultr discount I could probably get you one cause I still have an account with them somewhere...

Edit: Oh... we can also get credit on our proton mail plans if you use my refer a friend. I like to use proton because mailboxes are encrypted using your password (good sense of privacy for your customers, no email provider scanning or spying) and they are tight on security when setting up your domain with their email.

 

[Artonn]

You could always sign up for a new account for your new project. Also, you could look into Lightsail, which is a direct competitor to Digital Ocean.

edit: By far the most expensive part of AWS is bandwidth, which can be defrayed somewhat for forums by using Cloudflare (free) CDN. But with your bandwidth usage, it will be next to nothing.

How much do you think 4GB of bandwidth would cost me? So far I've had a max of 3.5gb.

 

[Artonn]

To add to what @Miri has suggested, I've been on XF Cloud for over a year and it's been bulletproof with zero downtime. My forum has very good performance and the full suite is included, along with zero server hassle. Just pay your monthly sub and away you go, instant forum.

Check out the pricing, here:

Get started with XenForo

Choose a solution to suit your needs

xenforo.com

I'm just not at a point where I would really like to use those 50$/60$, especially when it's a new hobby project.

 

[fly]

How much do you think 4GB of bandwidth would cost me? So far I've had a max of 3.5gb.

Actually it will be $0. I seem to recall they gave you 1GB (or maybe 10GB) free a month, but it seems its 100GB. No idea when that changed.

 

[Artonn]

You can solve this without switching hosts by settings up DKIM with your mail provider / domain, and sending email as your domain.

I suggest the protonmail Mail Essentials for business plan so that you can send and receive mail using your domain into your mailbox and XF can also send mail using SMTP.

That's a large budget. Vultr we can see starts at $3.50 per month (or $2.50 per month if you are fine with using ipv6) (0.5GB), Then digital ocean at $4 (0.5GB), and linode at $5 (1 GB)

aws starts at $3.70 / month for compute (0.5GB) plus $0.80 storage = $4.50.

That puts aws at most expensive, vultr the cheapest smallest, and linode bang for buck for 1 GB.

If you want to save every last penny on hosting while still having two boxes you could do two 0.5 GB IPv6 boxes on vultr, one for forum, one for database. Use cloudflare so that anyone can access your website with ipv4 or ipv6.

That puts you at $2.5 + $2.5 + $7 (email) = $12 USD per month. And if you need a vultr discount I could probably get you one cause I still have an account with them somewhere...

Edit: Oh... we can also get credit on our proton mail plans if you use my refer a friend. I like to use proton because mailboxes are encrypted using your password (good sense of privacy for your customers, no email provider scanning or spying) and they are tight on security when setting up your domain with their email.

Would SES be similar to protonmail? Currently I'm sitting around digitalocean and aws... What you are saying is I should be able to set everything up for 8 usd on aws?

 

[Artonn]

Actually it will be $0. I seem to recall they gave you 1GB (or maybe 10GB) free a month, but it seems its 100GB. No idea when that changed.

Oh wow. So I would only be paying for the lightsail itself? Would probably need a S3 bucket and SES and inbox too, without knowing too much. I'm not even sure about database, I imagine I could run it on lightsail beside the forum? How much would you think this would cost?

 

[fly]

If you use Lightsail, bandwidth is included in the price (2TB if you use the $5 instance). I was referring to bandwidth inside AWS proper being 100GB.

 

[TPerry]

I was hoping to get something cheaper than 50 usd, I see that digital ocean can be setup for 6 usd. I also already have a standalone licence for xenforo.

If you are going be sending mail from your VPS instance, be aware that many of DO's IP's are in block lists... and one of the very reasons is that they are a cheap provider that spammers use to spin up instances to generate spam from and then after a month or so they get shut down, but the damage to the IP is already done. Sometimes that damage can be cleaned up, but there are certain providers that block the entire ASN for those providers. It is harder to clean up if that's the case.
Amazon SES for the transactional is one way to go (it's what I and many others use) and it's not that hard to set up as long as you are somewhat familiar with MTA terminology and setups.

 

[⭐ Alex ⭐]

Would SES be similar to protonmail? Currently I'm sitting around digitalocean and aws... What you are saying is I should be able to set everything up for 8 usd on aws?

SES is free but not quite as intuitive as protonmail.

Oh wow. So I would only be paying for the lightsail itself? Would probably need a S3 bucket and SES and inbox too, without knowing too much. I'm not even sure about database, I imagine I could run it on lightsail beside the forum? How much would you think this would cost?

My advice: Just skip S3, and use https://xenforo.com/community/resources/digitalpoint-app-for-cloudflare®.8750/ because Cloudflare R2 is not only cheaper but gives you some free storage and AWS' permissions system is just complete nonsense. Cloudflare R2 your bucket either has a public domain and is public or it's private. AWS S3 was just a nightmare.

Why do you want to use lightsail? If you start using AWS' fancy offerings they will find ways to empty your wallet for nothing,

For example, if you want to use elastic beanstalk they try to force you to use a load balancer which is $15 per month by offering an easy SSL setup that way. Cloudfront also doesn't play nicely if you want to skip the load balancer because they wont connect to custom SSL certificates.
And their RDS database is also a mean $15 per month or so.

So yeah best to skip doing what they want you to and just setup manual ec2 instances if you're using aws and user cloudflare for R2 storage and CDN capabilities. Did I add that cloudfront wants you to pay for their WAF while cloudflare offers a free one?

Edit: It looks like lightsail is just a ribbon around all the ways you can empty your wallet on aws

 

[Artonn]

If you are going be sending mail from your VPS instance, be aware that many of DO's IP's are in block lists... and one of the very reasons is that they are a cheap provider that spammers use to spin up instances to generate spam from and then after a month or so they get shut down, but the damage to the IP is already done. Sometimes that damage can be cleaned up, but there are certain providers that block the entire ASN for those providers. It is harder to clean up if that's the case.
Amazon SES for the transactional is one way to go (it's what I and many others use) and it's not that hard to set up as long as you are somewhat familiar with MTA terminology and setups.

I see so it's a must to go to a mail focused service, since I guess they have it pretty well setup that you don't come into situations where your email won't get delivered to hotmail or yahoo for an example. For some reason they seem quite strict, while my gmail users always gets their mail.