Hosting my Django site [closed]

Question

Hi I'm looking for some advice I currently own a resseller package with Heart internet as I host a few personal websites. However I'm currently learning Django (The python Framework) and want to be able to host my own server.

I have been setting up virtual servers to play around with. Anyway to have SSH access you have to send in and ask them to open it for you, in the meantime of asking them if it was possible to install Django / set up SSH access i was advised that i can't use Django unless i purchase a Virtual machine even though Python is intalled on the server.

Surley i can install Django onto my server if i have SSH access? Has anyone else has a similair issue? Or can anyone advise me on what to do.. The last thing i was to do is spend more money with them.

Thanks.

Answer 1

It sounds like you're describing a shared hosting situation where you have SSH access but the webserver is preconfigured for you. You cannot practically install and serve Django on that machine, because you will not have access to the Apache or other webserver configuration. You could theoretically serve Django from a port other than the typical HTTP port, but this would be extremely irregular and your hosting company would not appreciate it.

You can deploy Django on Heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/django . It is free to deploy for extremely low-volume applications or for development; cost scales linearly with capacity above that.

You can also use Google App Engine with a slightly older version of Django. Either of these options have official support from the respective vendors and so they are much better ideas than trying to work around a restriction set by your hosting provider.

Finally, you could pay for a virtual machine, in which you would have full access to the webserver configuration and could serve anything you like. Virtual machines are available from any number of companies at a wide range of price points. You could also develop a Django application without hosting it anywhere but your local machine for starters, and worry about hosting after your application is functional.

Answer 2

AWS :

• Free tier available
• great support(but for technical help you got to pay)
• can use platform (PAAS) BeanStalk
• can customize architecture in case you get a dedicated instance
• great community of support
• Custom domain
• great documentation
• can SSH
• Most popular

Heroku:(Django)

• Free to some extent
• Can use only POSTgresql in free plan
• git must
• Good support
• easy to start
• custom domain
• Can use bash in production(Not SSH).. cannot make direct changes in production. This is what makes your App stable. Any change/update goes through git.
• code maintenance - good (deployment through git heroku commands only)
• use AWS S3 to store static files
• Temporary files are removed perodically
• Once you scale that they start to bill, it is really costly.
• Since this is a PAAS, you have got what you have got. It takes lots of efforts to customize(to some extent) the architecture of the APP.

Google App Engine:( Flask/Django project.)

• Free to some extent
• very easy to start(hello world app)
• custom domain
• code maintenance - good (automatic deployment)
• Support is not available

Pythonanywhere:

• Free to some extent
• No custom domain in free plan
• easy to use
• Good support

Webfaction:(Django)

• Not free.. (I think (minimal plan) costs 10 $ per month on shared hosting. )
• SSH available
• custom domain
• Architecture customization.
• Good support