The big problem with AWS is if you don’t know what you’re doing, it can get expensive fast. If you treat it like a normal virtual environment, then you’ll pay a lot. If you do some research and take advantage of their services, then you can run a pretty lean environment.
If you want more info on AWS, watch one of the AWS Architect exam training videos. There’s a really good class on Udemy that can teach you everything you want to know. The class is setup for getting the certification, but it’s a great class for anyone thinking of using their stuff. The class is $20 but goes on sale on Udemy’s site regularly.
Okay revisit time. The server package is at its capacity, we can hit 99% allotted CPU usage a few months in a row, and I am all out of tricks to optimize file size and we are at 29.999 out of 30 gig limit.
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Current stats. That would put us in the $300 managed discourse hosting package…sorry I can’t do that.
A quick browse seems to point to Digital Ocean as a favorite, but I know nothing about them or the differences. Okay smart people, what the heck should we do here? Monthly cost and my very extremely limited backed abilities need to be weighed the heaviest. When things go wrong, at some random time is what I am most worried about (updates), so limited plugins seems to be the recommendation.
You’ve got it. Find something as turn-key/hands-off as possible. You’re not in the webmaster business and unless you do it for a living then it’s likely more effort than you want to put in. I’m sure you’re capable of learning how to launch containerized services in AWS but it’s not your core business. Your time is much likely better spent furthering your products/store.
I am starting to understand this viewpoint. I like acting like the smart guy and saving some money but I much prefer CAD and getting dirty to sending Help tickets and puckering every few days as I hit update on the site.
I also think you all would appreciate it more as well. Less maintenance for me means more responsive to everything else, and updating the docs more often.
If we can sort out the forums and community instructions there is a lot less to move. So maybe a three step plan, 1a-discourse, 1b-community docs, 3-the rest of the site?
The shop is separate but is really fast. If we move everything that is not in the community docs over there the site would be maintenance/update free and fast. So the forums would be separate, GitHub pages, and static content/blog/shop. The stuff does not need to move but there would really not be many pages left and I think it would simplify the user experience in the end.
Shopify does have it’s own themes and plugins, but it is a full site builder. Wordpress is pretty awesome but it does take a lot of work and I am already paying for shopify and their hosting. Maybe I can make a new page over there and see how it goes.
Discoursehosting quoted $80-$160/month plus $600 for migration including a test run to verify everything. This is tough, I know even the official discourse package is probably very worth it. I mean if I had even a very limited part time employee they would cost more than that a month. At the same time, I do feel like I with (with everyone help) could manage it myself. It is just the issues that could arise that is what is worth paying for. If it goes down and I don’t know why my fall back would be to restore a backup and lose anything since (daily?).
I have been a trust level 3 member of the Glowforge Discourse Forum for four years. It is absolutely a joy to use. I appreciate that Ryan has done so much to keep this forum going and improving through the years. That’s helping his business but it is really helping us. But there are so many limitations to this platform in terms of easily accessing and reading old topics.
Since Discourse has different trust levels and can have special areas that are limited to those levels, perhaps there can be a sponsorship/paying tier for folks. They get access to some of the sausage making and also get a little leeway as quasi-administrators. That might offset the cost. I know there are folks you could trust to share administration duties.
I would pay monthly for this privilege it. Would be to my advantage to have a more efficient forum.
Interesting. That forum is listed on the Discourse main page as a standout so I would assume they use them. Maybe I should get there quote as well. I believe they have free migration help and maybe we fit in a middle tier somewhere, if it is close it would quickly offset the $600 migration fee.
Well I think we could have a solution, if it is not too obtrusive the Amazon affiliate plugin offered standard on the Discorse hosting package page could offset the monthly cost.
**Spoke to soon that is just a banner add, I was hoping it was integrated links.
Hmmm Digital ocean also requires a mailgun license. 10k emails are free a month and $5/10k after that. That sounds steep? So would each notification email count as one or each person subscribed that gets one? I can see burning through a ton of money on emails alone. I have no idea how many we currently use.
I get 10x emails at least per day. I bet up to about 50x on busy days (like today). But I don’t even get emailed when I write something :)!
So just for me, it’s between 300-1500 per month. I would guess closer to 500.
So it would be important to know if discourse emails are counted against that 10k. I would guess you’d easily reach 50k sometimes on hot topics. It’s possible there would be even more engagement with a better service too.
Yeah, this sucks. I have been at this for hours. I am getting no closer to a decision.
DO is an unknown cost probably a minimum of $80, or who knows maybe wayyyy more. DiscourseHosting has not gotten back about any real details about anything performance or speed related but seems to be the best deal. Using discourse hosting seems like we are even above the $300 package…Dude this sucks. I just know we are on borrowed time with bbpress and my current host.
Migrating seems a bit rough, we have attachments and logins to worry about. This may or may not be easy.
I was about to just sign up and try digital ocean when I realized it is probably the same cost as DH minus the one time migration and they would be a hell of a lot less work for me. Hopefully they get back with some details.
With the instructions I have seen on DH and from there email it almost seems like I am doing most of the migration anyway…so if DO is cheaper and easy. I guess I need to check it out and see what happens. Once I have Discourse running I think moving hosts is fairly easy.
I’m happy to kick-in some cash for migration cost if that ends up being a deciding factor. Thanks for diving into this Ryan, I recognize it’s a lot of work.
I wish I had gotten more into these platforms. I worked a lot with Mediawiki, Drupal and Wordpress when I was teaching school and ran local servers for my students to learn this stuff. I have done a library information systems software and have Google compute engine to run a local libraries IT on. But these days hosting has gotten so complicated, especially with security and managing traffic.
Hadn’t thought about email notification of posts. I don’t use that at all. I just hang out on the forum. The mobile app is really efficient for keeping track of things.
