Node.js server questions

[fooman]

I am looking at doing an auction site, but have a ticker of sorts to allow the user to see instant updates of current bids for multiple items at once.

I have done a little bit of testing with Node.js on my Mac, and it works well with socket.io. Node seems like the go-to for server-push type of applications. It seems like every tutorial and example runs on Nodejs.

That’s all fine. However, I’m not sure what I need to propose to my client in terms of what they need for hosting to pull this off.

For example, MediaTemple’s DV starts at $30/month on their website. Allows root access, so I can login and install Node from what I understand.

I see a lot of talk about Heroku, but I can’t make heads or tails of their pricing enough to actually lay it out in layman’s terms for a client.

Anyone able to guide me at all with this?

[fooman]

Had any luck with it? It’s a very competitive rate, so I’m curious if anyone has any experience hosting with this company.

[EricT]

Linode seems to me the way to go. Check it out. VPS is $20 month. I was really excited about Digital Ocean at first, but what started off as a great product, great interface, great customer service ended up pretty unbelievably bad, almost comical. I’m sure DO is great for some. Now that I’m looking at Linode, it’s obviously miles apart. I’d recommend Linode for sure.

[EricT]

No problem.

If you are strong in your server side skills, then you won’t even need support, but my gut instinct is that Digital Ocean might have some technical and support issues. Evidently they have been growing very quickly.

I’m new to the server side and Digital Ocean had great customer service until there was a problem that they seemed unable to resolve. I could not get content to write over existing content and render in the browser. I’m pretty certain that I know exactly what the problem is, but one support person kept writing super-long mean spirited replies and eventually blocked other really helpful support people from helping me. What I thought was unbelievably bad, almost comical, was that Digital Ocean actually then blocked me from opening a new vps, virtual private server, which they call droplets. Luckily all I had to do was reset my DNS settings on my old server and wait a couple of hours and my website was back up and running. My experience is that when support start blaming me for the product not working, it’s usually that support really doesn’t know the answer. It was clearly time for me to move on.

I like to keep things positive, so I would just like to add that I looked at Linode and everything looks very thorough. And people really seem to be loyal to Linode.

Best of luck to you.

[James]

What brought you to the assumption that DigitalOcean is comical?!

I have never seen an easier route to setting up a Node.js application. You literally create a “Droplet” (as it’s called), and away you go. They have tutorials/documentation on how to setup practically everything involving Node.js. My entire blog is with them at £3.63 (local) a month and I swear by it, it has been the best hosting choice I’ve ever made. In fact, I recently read an article where Node.js (running Ghost Blog) ran almost 700% faster than PHP (running WordPress) on DigitalOcean. I live in the UK, using a server based in New York. I can religiously say their service has been the fastest yet, hosting both a Ghost blog (Node.js) and WordPress (PHP) simultaneously. It is a tedious process setting up Node.js, but so was PHP in its early days. Node.js just needs the backing support of one-click installs like PHP received when WordPress sparked.

As for writing issues, were you using sudo commands to rewrite the permissions? (They clearly have no permissions liability so it is you that creates that privacy and security, which tends to be the case in most, if not all nginx capable proxies) – I know it might not help you now you’ve moved on, but just a thought :) Their support pressure has drastically increased due to the demand of Ghost support (a new blogging platform that is limited to hosting options right now!)

DigtialOcean, MaxCDN and AmazonAWS are my three favorite Node.js options, though, people will have different tastes.

[Author]

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