Recommendations for decent UK-based web hosting?

[mapesdhs]

Hello all!

I have been away from the SGI scene for a long time, dealing with my late parents' estate, a house on an island, a complicated logistical issue which has only recently come to a close. Sorry for the long absence, and thus the now many outdated links on my site, etc. I'll get to fixing them when I can. Still readjusting to urban living. :}

So I'm back home now, but have run into a problem with my SGI site. Namely, my host provider started moaning about the disk space usage, despite the package I'm paying for supposedly providing "unlimited" storage (it doesn't, in reality it's a 100GB cap). I had lots of vlogs uploaded documenting the restoration work I was doing on the island, for viewing as private links for friends & family. Now though, despite having removed half the data, the provider is still moaning about whether my files are related to my main site or not (as if it's any of their business!). First time any such thing has ever been mentioned in years of having the site, though in the past it was a different owning company.

Either way, it seems my site needs a new home, somewhere that won't be subject to such unreasonable intrusiveness. I'd prefer a UK provider but am open to US locations if the benefits are clear. So far it looks like Hostinger would be a prime alternative (it would double the storage to 200GB and include free SSL), but I'd welcome suggestions for other options. My site does not induce high traffic, but I do want lots of space; atm I've just been using it for the island vlogs, but in time I'd intended to use it to hold mp4s of digitised SGI VHS demo tapes & suchlike. I've looked at VPS options but they're too expensive, and note I've ruled out GoDaddy and BlueHost. I've read a number of review sites, best hosting and so on, but such reviews tend to be overly favourable in every case compared to actual user reviews.

The alternative I suppose is to use a site such as Odyssey, Minds, Bitchute or YT for the SGI vids, but that's not what I'd been hoping to do. Nevertheless, I want to move the main site elsewhere within the next few months.

Thanks!

Ian.

 

[Elf]

Nice to see you back!

Are you just serving up static content, or do you have any code that needs to run server side (e.g. CGI scripts, PHP, API back-ends or so on)?

 

[mapesdhs]

Thanks! And yes the same static code as before, so nothing more complex than tables, image maps and frames (glorious 90s webness), that way it will remain fully functional on SGIs and be as lightweight as possible (it's all hand coded).

I gather there have been some developments in available browsers for SGIs during my absence, something I need to look into. First though I need to setup a daily SGI again; I was using a rackmount Tezro but had to sell it a while ago for funds. I'm switching to an O2 to minimise noise/power, just need to get it cabled up, sort out the disks, etc. (the Tezro had some stuff on SSDs).

Ian.

 

[Elf]

Static content makes things a lot simpler! You could host this without any running servers and just pay (a very small amount) for storage and traffic.

What a lot of places do today (us included) is use something like S3 object storage paired with a CDN distribution.

• S3 object storage is basically online file storage, with very high durability and speed. You put your files (e.g. images, HTML, CSS) in an "S3 bucket," which stores them for access and use
• Once the files are in S3, you can attach something like a Cloudfront CDN distribution to have access to that bucket. The CDN is permissioned to be able to read files from the bucket and acts as the public web server, serving them up to the web with globally distributed caching. It also provides SSL if you want it; AWS can attach a properly signed SSL cert to the CDN distribution for free.

This gives you what is basically the fastest possible website -- much more so than running things on a VM -- where the content is cached globally, and no fixed infrastructure costs, and no ongoing maintenance or patching. Your could likely even fit entirely within the free tier (S3 pricing, Cloudfront pricing). You can have the S3 storage geographically centered in the UK (AWS regions) if you prefer that jurisdiction, although the CDN is fully global.

If you visit our main website ( https://sgi.sh/ ), that is how that works, and the static content for the forum like the CSS, images, etc. are served up that way, as well as the SGUG-RSE software repository.

The only downside I should note is it won't autogenerate directory listing index pages, but if you are not relying on that it is a very trouble free and inexpensive solution that also gives the best performance results.

Edit: linked to a support article previously about how to do this, but removed it since there are better ways than what is detailed there

 

[mapesdhs]

Thanks for all the info, but tbh I'd rather not use Amazon. :} Also looks kinda complicated to me (I have a slower brain these days, hehe), oodles to read to figure it out, and if I understand their pricing page correctly I don't think it would be usefully cheaper than a normal hosting service. I'd prefer a setup where the costs are fixed and I know what they are in advance.

Leaning toward Hostinger atm, but I'll look into it further next week.

Ian.

 

[Elf]

No problem! Regarding pricing, my guess for a lower traffic website would be pennies to dollars a month or even totally free (and so almost definitely cheaper than any traditional option), but, I understand not wanting to use Amazon. I also have non-technical things about them as a company that I am not very happy about. I wish I liked one of their competitors any better as well! It would be nice to see someone in the space that could really go toe to toe with Amazon that also had some better corporate values.

 

[Elf]

Just as an example on the costing front -- understanding the reluctance to use AWS -- but, for reference on our previous month's costs:

• CloudFront CDN: $0.01
• S3 storage: $0.86
• Data transfer: $0.01

This includes all of our software repository file serving etc. The reason it is (somewhat absurdly) cheap is just because a lot of the usage fits within the AWS free tier. Most of our costs come from running the forum VMs and RDS database which are not as cheap as the web content side

 

[mapesdhs]

I understand, but as I say I'd rather have something fixed and known in advance, but I also just don't want to use Amazon.

Ian.

 

[Elf]

No problem, I definitely understand; I just wanted to put it up there for reference

 

[mapesdhs]

No prob, thanks for taking the time to write it out! Maybe in the future something more sophisticated would be more suitable, I'll see how it goes.

Ian.

 

[ghost180sx]

For my company, we use getflywheel.com. However, this is a managed WordPress hosting service. The only thing I have to say about them is they're awesome. They've never let me down. I checked to see if they do basic static hosting, however, and they do not...

I've found this PCMag review of hosting services that cost less than $100 US per year.

Oh, siteground is OK. I've used them before. They offer basic web hosting starting at $2.99/month.

 

[ghost180sx]

I also have a friend based in the UK who recommended Vercel. They offer static hosting accounts for free for "hobby" use. I don't think it matters that you do a bit of business. You're not deploying any kind of dynamic content or creating an app. I'd try it out, and keep a paid option as a backup.

 

[mapesdhs]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm going to leave this for a ittle while as there are some other tasks I need to deal with first.

Ian.