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Hi All:

I have used AWS Lightsail for some time for small instance Linux/Wordpress VMs, but TBH, I’m just tired of the whole amazon eco system and company.

Where do you guys go for SOHO VPS instances today? I haven’t tried Digital Ocean (Droplets), but need to spin up a small scale VM to host my own email and wordpress site. Any recommendations?

PS. I apologize in advance if this question / discussion isn’t appropriate. I know there are a million review sites out there and it’s not really a question on whether to go to BLUESHOST or HOSTGATOR as much as where do you go to park your own small scale instances these days…it’s more about who to you trust to be your go to VM host?

I don’t have the money for a rackspace or other higher end service. I’m just looking to park a hobby site VM (Linux/Plesk/Wordpress/POSTFIX) for my own use. I’ve not tried Azure and I don’t know if they have anything for hobbyists.

FWIW, I’m an artist / designer and really am just hosting my own email, Wordpress site to showcase my art and stuff.

Again, I apologize if this question is not appropriate, but I was just looking for some ideas about who to work with and trust these days to park tiny scale linux VMs.

3 Spice ups
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Sounds like Azure containers might work for you. Have you considered containers rather than VMs?

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Hey there! I’m a tad late to the thread, but wanted to check in to see how I might be able to help. Happy to get you connected with folks on our team if you’d like!

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Hi Kelly:

FWIW, I have been a user (professionally) of AWS for years, some EC2 and some LS, lots of S3 and Route 53.

I had spun up a Lightsail instance for my use as a sologig site / SOHO and after getting DNS (Route 53), Plesk, Wordpress, and SSL including DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, I spent hours trying to figure out why OUTBOUND messages weren’t being delivered. It took time to troubleshoot. Even though I had the LS and LINUX FW policies set to allow SMTP 25 (and 587) in and out, it was clear that some other policy was blocking outbound 25. (incoming was fine).

I stumbled upon a form after searching GOOGLE for help that SMTP was blocked by default, and that users could fill out this form and state their case for opening port 25.

I did so, explaining that as an expert in mail security, I was taking all prudent steps to ensure valid, proper use of outbound messaging for my site (Wordpress), my plesk (for notifications / alerts), and for a single mailbox (info@mydomain.com) for use to communicate my clients, including rate limiting of SMTP settings.

I got an autoresponder back telling me to use Amazon SES (which is great for the Wordpress part of the issue), but did not allow me to host a single mailbox on my instance. My option was to go pay for a mailhosting company or to simply move to another VPS…which I did.

So, I’ve moved on. I’m now happily on Digital Ocean who has been great with support, usability, etc.
I’m pretty much done with AWS for my own personal / professional use. If I have clients who desire to use it, I will continue to support them. But I’m jaded now re: AWS, and on the up side, I’m incredibly happy with my experiences so far with DO. I certainly won’t be electing to use the AWS ecosystem any time soon.

BUt I’m a nobody and Jeff Bezos’s pocket book certainly isn’t going to hurt from my decision to go elsewhere.

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Steps to set up a VPS in five steps:

Learning how to log into your VPS via Secure Shell (SSH) access.
Updating your server.
Creating a new user and modifying its privileges.
Enabling public key authentication.
Setting up a firewall for your VPS.

Greeting,

Rachel Gomez