Not exactly a self-hosting thing, but I’d like to know if anyone has experience with this service. Is it worth it? A scam? I don’t know. I don’t really have the hardware to truly self-host a Lemmy instance (mostly because of storage restrictions), but I’d like to know if this service that seems cheap for what it offers if legit.
I know that this isn’t a pure self hosting question, but I nailed .com domain for $1/year and was wondering if it’s actually worth doing this. Any insight is appreciated.
Editing to add that I’d love to do pure self-hosting here, but storage is a real issue.
Hello,
Thank you for reaching out. TL;DR: We’re real people, a real business, providing a real Lemmy service.
Lemmy is provided as a fully managed hosting service on our scale-out App Cloud. This includes automatic updates, backups, and customized security. Note, this is not a VPS. It’s a custom built infrastructure designed specifically for applications. While you have direct SSH access, Lemmy is provided as SaaS. Essentially, you don’t need to lift a finger. Just use Lemmy and we’ll work in the background to keep it running.
Technicians are trained in Lemmy, and provide direct support for the application. That includes support for related software such as Voyager, or Mlmym.
The business is registered as Operation Enterprise, a Florida LLC. Document number: L09000070587
You can find additional information including our FAQs and policies at https://www.knthost.com/policies
To get started, simply order service at https://www.knthost.com/lemmy and point your domain(s).
Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
Curious here how is storage an issue? Lemmy is 90% text and if you do the proxy for pictures its like 10%. If you use pictures from elsewhere and don’t use pictures it’s all text. I have had lemmy hosted for over a year now and it’s using under 35GB. I have a not that subscribes to top posts on larger instances so I should have a lot of communities loaded.
Edit: oh yeah Pictrs integrates with S3 api now so you can offload image storage to cloud for pennies.
It is an issue for me because the only machine I have is my daily driver laptop, and I’d really rather not take up even that 35GB if it can be helped.
No idea about the Lemmy hosting bit, but I highly doubt that .com you got will renew at $1 going forward. Judging by this list it’ll most likely be $9+ after the first year.
At $1/year, the registrar you used is taking a loss because they pay more than that to the registry for it. They might be fine with that for the first year to get you in the door, but they’d presumably prefer to be profitable in the long term.
Yeah, that’s partially why I’d need info as to if this Lemmy host is legit. I have the domain (technically), and if the price jumps I’d be ok with that. I paid upfront for a couple years at $1/yr. Yeah, the registrar might screw me over, but at the price I’ve paid, there’s not a lot of risk. I really need feedback on the Lemmy host.
Not sure. The website looks alright. I always have a look at the contact details and see if it’s a proper company. It says K&T is a brand name of “Operation Enterprise” which doesn’t give any results when googling it. So I’d be wary. But check for yourself.
You can just pay for a month and see what happens? But I’d add: $11.25 USD isn’t very cheap for a VPS with that specifications. For that price you could also pick lots of other hosting providers. You’d just have to set up Lemmy yourself.
You are quite right in that it is not a cheap VMS. Since I don’t know 100% how to set thing up, though, the cost might be worth my time.
I may just pay for it and report back as a service to the community.
Sure. I’d say the price is alright if they manage everything for you. There is some labor involved in designing such a platform, packaging the applications, maintaining the infrastructure, preparing updates etc and offering support of an application level. If they do that, it’s probably worth the additional bucks. I maintain some services myself and get away way cheaper. But there is a substancial investment in time to learn webhosting and maintaining stuff.
I know for me personally, its worth the time to set things up myself since I usually learn something new along the way. If you don’t care about the learning aspect and just want the finished product, paying someone else is probably a good idea.
you could probably find cheaper with more to do more
I see you mentioned the free Oracle cloud servers, they are not simple to use like many cloud VPS. But if you wanted to go down that route then if you get a full account with a CC on file then you can normally get the ampere instance (still free)