Help picking a hosting solution for a rails app

[allend]

We need: - Some sort of clear path for scaling - Ability to run background jobs - Decent amount of control - Outbound email

Looked at: - Heroku - EY

Honestly, underwhelmed so far.

Is it better to get our own box and administer it ourselves. I'm dumb so I'd really prefer to spend as little time as possible on this aspect, but maybe it is better to bite the bullet? What do people think?

[davidw]

Linode is pretty good, although you'll have to administer it yourselves. You could also split things up - have the main app on heroku or something, and farm out 'special' (background processing or whatever) jobs to a Linode.