I like DigitalOcean for the no-nonsense servers, especially local SSDs. They're super fast. For one of my apps, it works best as I have a monthly batch process that takes 30 minutes or so. For the same price, I get a micro instance in AWS, and due to IOPS throttling, the batch process takes a few hours.

For another of my apps I chose AWS because I wanted reliable storage on S3. Since the app is going to use S3 in the backend, it was best to use an EC2 web server. I could have used Google Cloud platform for this. I think I'll move it when my free tier on AWS expires, as I've found GCP instances to perform better at the same price point.

Yet another app is just a very lightweight API on top of someone else's API. I use AWS Lambda and S3 combination. I don't know if GCP has an equivalent, and I don't care because it already works in AWS, and it's practically free.

If you are not so cost-conscious, nit-picky or have very special requirements like me, I'd suggest you choose the one you're most familiar with. Pretty much any hosting provider will work for 99% of the use cases. The incremental benefits are not worth learning how to manage yet another provider's UI / command line and monitoring tools.

I currently use AWS for work and Digital Ocean for side projects (I migrate them to AWS when they're at a certain traffic/user level). I used to be on Linode, but moved away from them after they had a series of security breaches and handled the disclosure of that in a very shady way. Service is good for all 3 listed.

Not to beat a dead horse on the "it depends on your needs" idea, but it looks like you're maybe hosting a simple personal site?

If so, and for others finding this thread that ARE at a more basic level, I would say don't rule out the simple and inexpensive options either. I've used everything from AWS to Heroku to Siteground to Hostgator and a few others along the way. Here's what I would suggest:

If you are looking to simply host a very basic personal site and you want it to be as easy and affordable as possible, check places like Siteground or similar. HTML / CSS, Wordpress, Joomla, etc all work fine there.

If you are doing something with a different tech stack, such as Node, you'll have to make a different decision (like the ones below). Also, if you want to LEARN as you host, take that into consideration as well.

If you are hosting HTML / CSS or even Jekyll for your site, you can even do that with GitHub. This is a great way to learn git workflows on a basic site as well if that's of interest.

If you want to learn the basics of cloud, but not dig too deep just yet, Digital Ocean is probably a good bet. If you listen to tech podcasts regularly, you can always get intro deals on DO and Linode to try them out.

If you're ready to dig in and learn some fun stuff with the cloud, AWS is an awesome resource. If you don't have an account yet, you get 1 year of free tier to play with servers and resources. If you DO already have an account, create a new one for "business" purposes and still get your 1 year free tier.

Starting with your current needs is always the way to go...but having discussions like this is great because it can also bring up things you didn't even realize to ask sometimes.

Enjoy!

I work with Digital Ocean and Amazon AWS. Both very reliable! I personally prefer AWS.

I personally like to use my own server to host stuff. But this requires you to know exactly how to admin a server: deep knowledge of the server OS and security and backup mechanisms and a plan for technicians to maintain your server with high priotity. Also you have to set up monitoring and keep it up2date. A cluster-solution might be a very good idea.

It's quite difficult and time consuming, but well, I like doing stuff and having full control :)

As in this post - hashnode.com/post/is-amazons-aws-superior-to-micr… there is no right or wrong host. The best host is the host that fits in your budget and features.

You wouldn't put a local USA restaurant website on a host with it's data center in the UK. You wouldn't put a streaming video service on Digital Ocean (DO doesn't have a CDN or load balancers)

What works best for me is 99% of the time Rackspace - management portal is super easy to use, the price is always right for me; they have a CDN, Load Balancer, server images, backups, etc... all of the basics. Their support staff is 2nd to none (they now provide support for Microsoft Azure cloud services, their that good)

The other 1% - the random WordPress sites - goes on Digital Ocean.

Nothing is wrong with Linode or Azure or AWS or etc - those 2 are just the 2 hosts I use often and have gotten comfortable with. For most sites I do, AWS is just to much to manage properly and Rackspace and Digital Ocean have never given me a big enough reason to leave.

Again, no host is perfect; every project is different and every budget is different - if one doesn't work for you or makes you mad - leave! That's why we have options.

Also - never dismiss an in house server. You'll need to buy at minimum a server grade desktop tower with redundant power and at least Raid 1 hard drives, a battery backup and have a solid wired internet connection - but $600 to $1000 can get you something very nice from Dell / HP / IBM and it's in house. After the expense of the server and your internet connection (which your paying anyways) the server is yours; no monthly fees. In the right circumstances, this is the best option.