Free cloud computing hosting

[A Former User]

I can recommend Time4VPS
https://www.time4vps.com/

[robi]

Oracle Cloud has a decent free tier.. but initially the UX was horrid.

Not sure how it is now..

[scooke]

You are going to keep moving your Cloudron around? You already have been? I mean, I've switched hosts once or twice too, but your approach is quite radical!

[A Former User]

IMO if possible I'd just build a PC and run it from home if its a personal cloudron.

[christiaan]

Thanks everyone. Running it on my own machine is an interesting thought.

I have a pretty reliable 1000/400 Mbps internet connection and a Mac mini that I could use, although I'd like to keeping run macOS on it for various reasons. I can run macOS as main OS and Ubuntu with something like WMware Fusion, with Cloudron controlling it, right?

[A Former User]

@christiaan Absolutely, you should be able to run Cloudron on a VM there.

[timconsidine]

@christiaan Yes, but performance might suffer a little. Depends if you're using it actively or it is sitting in the corner.
VMware is very memory hungry and the older Mac mini might not have a lot. Depends if you bought it with extra or installed extra.
Personally I much prefer Virtualbox to Vmware, but I'm splitting hairs.

I have a "mini PC" : small form box, smaller than Mav Mini footprint (but bit taller). I just need a native install of Ubuntu on it. Wasn't expensive (£200-300). No keyboard mouse or screen except during setup. Just sits in the corner and I remote connect if I need to do something on it.

[A Former User]

@timconsidine yeah. Bare metal will be better imo. Perhaps virtualbox has less overhead?

[timconsidine]

@atrilahiji any VM technology on laptop/desktop is very cludgey in my own personal experience. I think minimum needed to make it work properly is 32Gb or 64Gb ram on device. Even with 16Gb it struggles (or I am just not patient enough).

@christiaan in your shoes, I would flatten the MacMini, or repartition it to have a small Mac OS boot (in case you ever need to go back to it) and make a bigger partition for something like Ubuntu. Then boot into the Ubuntu partition when powering on, and leave it running in that. Install Coudron on that. Performance will be much better.

Saves buying a different box as I suggested was option in earlier post.

[A Former User]

I can throw together a parts list as well if you want suggestions. Availability and pricing will of course vary based on location.

[christiaan]

I've considered hosting locally on my Mac mini but want to avoid all the potential administration that this involves any time there's a problem. We currently host our email with Gandi so I'm considering using them instead. Do you think one of these tiers is enough to host calendars, address book (via Nextcloud or Radicale) + very simple low traffic website?

[ianhyzy]

@christiaan even 2GB of RAM is a bit tight. IMO you don't need a ton of power or storage but both Nextcloud and Wordpress gobble RAM

[christiaan]

@ianhyzy ah okay, thanks. I was using Surfer for web host (literary a static home page holder).

I assume Radicale is more RAM efficient?

[ianhyzy]

@christiaan radicale is probably fine. If your only big app is Nextcloud you can give the 2GB model a shot and see how it works. If you're doing static sites and radicale you can probably get away with the 1gb version but that cuts it pretty close.

[timconsidine]

@christiaan if you determined to go with gandi and are budget constrained, then I understand.
But for that budget you can get more RAM from other providers, if you have flexibility not to be gandi
And one always needs more ram ....

[christiaan]

@timconsidine great, okay thanks for that.

I ended up exploring Gandi's SOGo implementation, which comes with their email hosting, and it all seems to work well for calendars and address book now. It didn't when we first signed up.

So that's kind of solved my problem really!