[__mp]

0) Get a cheap virtual/dedicated machine.

1) Install docker and docker-compose

2) Setup traefik, a reverse proxy, in docker (good starting point: https://docs.traefik.io/user-guide/docker-and-lets-encrypt/ ).

3) Run $docker container (ghost, wordpress...). I typically use one docker-compose file for each domain. "expose" is not necessary because the requests are proxied by traefik.

Here's a docker-compose sample for a website available under my-website.com:

    version: '3'
    
    services:
        web:
            container_name: my-website.com-nginx
            image: nginx
            restart: unless-stopped
            volumes:
                - ./data:/usr/share/nginx/html
            labels:
              - "traefik.docker.network=web"
              - "traefik.enable=true"
              - "traefik.basic.frontend.rule=Host:my-website.com"
              - "traefik.basic.port=80"
              - "traefik.basic.protocol=http"
    
    networks:
        default:
            external:
                name: web

There are probably more elegant ways to do this, however I found it quite effective for my setup.

[hugey010]

Completely agree with the ease of this setup as it's been my goto for roughly a year.

Put Docker on your VM / instance, make a project with a docker-compose that just ties one or many services together with traefik as the reverse proxy (I use CNAMEs or subdomain routing - path routing & stripping adds complexity and breaks many apps).

For the actual site you can choose any stack you desire. I'd recommend node / express over wordpress for a simple site, but you can rock a flavor of the month, or whatever your experience allows you to be productive in - Swift Vapor, go, php, .NET... then dockerize your site.

Deploys and execution should be identical locally and remotely. If you get popular, you are in a great place to scale out compared to many traditional stacks. If you want to try out another service, tool, database, whatever; just add it to the docker-compose, run docker-compose down/up, and there she is.

There is a sharp initial learning curve with Docker - images, containers and their layers, volumes, networks and ports, and how all that interacts with the host machine. Containerization is arguable something you won't be able to ignore forever. The advantages are just too numerous and appealing, especially for the hero solo developer!

[pnutjam]

Nah, just use nearlyfreespeech.net

You get a bsd host with shell access for cheap.

[dvtrn]

WOW. You have no idea how much it makes he happy and encouraged to see that NFS is still making it. They were my first webhost, for price alone, and then overtime became my default because of the support.

Eventually moved on when my needs evolved and sort of...forgot about them until this comment.

[0xfeba]

I've been with them for about 10 years now. They've increased pricing and decreased support at the same time. They have introduced (probably 8 years ago) a static site option which is considerably cheaper.

But moving my static sites to S3 would be considerably cheaper.

[abdullahkhalids]

Unfortunately, they discontinued the static site option 2(?) years ago. Now all sites are dynamic, but my static site costs have barely gone up, so its all good.

[pnutjam]

I too have mostly moved on, but I still have a couple clients that use them and I maintain an adjunct account and register my domains through them. They provide an excellent service, especially for someone like the person asking this question.

[blakewatson]

I love NFSN. To me, it feels like a step up from conventional shared hosting, while not going as far as to be a VPS. Despite the price increase, I'm still a happy, longtime customer.