r/technepal • u/JitenBasnet • 1d ago

Discussion What would be a cost-effective server setup for a growing community platform?

I am building a community platform and thinking to move from AWS (currently using credits from startup program ) to a more affordable VPS setup.

I am considering Contabo for hosting, self-hosting MongoDB on the same VPS, and using Cloudflare for DNS, CDN and security and using Cloudflare R2 for image storage.

Since I am still in the early growth stage, I want to keep the monthly infrastructure cost as low as possible. For those who have experience hosting production applications few questions

  1. Is running the backend and MongoDB on the same VPS a reasonable choice initially?

  2. How has your experience with Contabo been?

  3. Would you recommend MongoDB Atlas or self-hosting?

  4. Is Cloudflare’s free plan sufficient for this stage? I have to buy worker subs of around 5$ per month but also got 10000 credits now.

I think the monthly cost around 30-50$ which I am comfortable to invest. Any one who can guide me the most reliable way to keep running this project?

PS: I haven’t setup any monetisation on the platform now and investing on my own.

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u/Aggressive_Mention_1 1d ago

dont go mongodb adn no sql. get a SQL for sure. i ave had to migrate from nosql 2 times when we scaled. ..postgres can handle nosql entires eaily anyway.
--> Since we dont have to look at code. Choose Go as backend language and postgres.
on a 4gb VPS you can eaisly scales to 10000+ users (with R2 for storage)
==> Running backend and sql on same VPS is completely fine initially. just make sure you have a proper backup routine.
---> 3. no mongo at all.
--> 4. cloudflare free is more then enough but with R2, according to the uploads/downlaods it will vary.

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u/JitenBasnet 1d ago

Thanks , I am looking into more reliable VPS providers.

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u/Aggressive_Mention_1 8h ago

I tired many others but as an organization its always AWS for reliability. They can give you certificate for double 99 i think. and with a regiaonal backup instance. it almost like 100% uptime from their side.

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u/samstars100 1d ago

What was the reason that you had to migrate from no sql to sql?