figbert.com-website

[ACTIVE] the website and home of figbert on the clearnet
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      1 +++
      2 title = "Moving To Hetzner Cloud from DigitalOcean"
      3 date = 2020-11-01
      4 [extra]
      5 type = "post"
      6 +++
      7 
      8 Since I began working on self-hosting, I've been using a
      9 [DigitalOcean][do] (affiliate link) VPS running [Debian 10][debian].
     10 However, after investigating the alternatives in the space,
     11 I'll be moving to [Hetzner Cloud][hetzner] when my DigitalOcean
     12 credits run out in six months. Here's why.
     13 <!-- more -->
     14 
     15 I went with DigitalOcean as my hosting platform primarily because
     16 of the USD$50 credit included with [Github Student][gh-student].
     17 I've used USD$20 of that credit as of today, and the remaining money
     18 should run out around April 2020, giving me almost a year of VPS
     19 for free. Not a bad deal.
     20 
     21 With that said, as my credits hit the half-way point, I've begun
     22 to think about what's to come. Namely, the fact that my current
     23 server is running at a constant 80% memory usage – severely
     24 limiting what I can self-host.
     25 
     26 ## Money talks...
     27 
     28 I currently use the cheapest DigitalOcean VPS available. I have
     29 1 vCPU, 1GB of RAM, 25GB of SSD, and 1TB of data transfer. All that
     30 power is packed in a clean USD$5 per month. This is, as far as cloud
     31 hosts go, pretty good bang for your buck. Hetzner **blows that out of
     32 the water**. Take a look at this table:
     33 
     34 | **USD/Month** | **vCPU** | **Memory** | **Storage** | **Traffic** | **Provider** |
     35 |:--------------|:---------|:-----------|:------------|:------------|:-------------|
     36 | $3.41 | 1 | 2GB | 20GB | 20TB | Hetzner |
     37 | $4.77 | 2 | 2GB | 40GB | 20TB | Hetzner |
     38 | $5.00 | 1 | 1GB | 25GB | 1TB | DigitalOcean |
     39 | $6.70 | 2 | 4GB | 40GB | 20TB | Hetzner |
     40 | $10.00 | 1 | 2GB | 25GB | 2TB | DigitalOcean |
     41 
     42 Check out the math on that, seriously. Hetzner's base tier offers
     43 1 vCPU, 2GB of ram, 20GB of SSD, and 20TB of data transfer for
     44 USD$3.41 per month. That's double the ram and 20 times the transfer
     45 for almost **half the price** of my current DigitalOcean droplet.
     46 The fourth down in the table above, the one I plan on purchasing, costs
     47 USD$1.70 more than DigitalOcean and has **quadruple the performace**
     48 of my current VPS. That's more than even *Docker* could need. Ok that
     49 might be a slight exaggeration, but it's still a lot.
     50 
     51 ## ...and it speaks for the trees.
     52 
     53 Hetzner is a [green hosting provider][green-web-directory], as
     54 certified by the [Green Web Foundation][gwf]. DigitalOcean is not.
     55 Obviously, climate change is important. If we look at it objectively,
     56 it's one of the only extinction-level threats to human existence at
     57 the moment. All that is to say that switching to a green hosting provider
     58 is the only thing [I need to do][my-carbon] according to [this online
     59 website carbon calculator][carbon-calc], and you know I can't resist
     60 online website metrics.
     61 
     62 ## So that's nice.
     63 
     64 Anyways, that's a pretty good summary of my thoughts on the move. I'm
     65 probably going to use the move to make a few other changes to my hosting
     66 setup (i.e. `docker-compose` to [`k3s`][k3s], [`umami`][umami] to
     67 [`plausible`][plausible]). I'll keep you all abreast of the latest updates
     68 to my hosting in future posts.
     69 
     70 Until then, this is FIGBERT signing off. I should make a more consistent outro.
     71 
     72 [do]: https://m.do.co/c/1f23d011ae24
     73 [debian]: https://www.debian.org/
     74 [hetzner]: https://www.hetzner.com/
     75 [gh-student]: https://education.github.com/pack
     76 [green-web-directory]: https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/directory/
     77 [gwf]: https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/
     78 [my-carbon]: https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/figbert-com/
     79 [carbon-calc]: https://www.websitecarbon.com/
     80 [k3s]: https://k3s.io/
     81 [umami]: https://umami.is/
     82 [plausible]: https://plausible.io/