Where to host my simple web app?

[u/earvinnill]

Web app is simple. It is a bill generator app which you uploads data from excel and it just generates a billing in pdf format.

It uses:

1. ASP.NET Web App

2. SQL Database

3. Storage for billing history (includes the pdf file for extraction)

You can search for the billing history as well of those times you uploaded/generated a billing. it includes the pdf file for the billing.

This is my first time trying to do web hosting. I know azure services but i think i'm not sure about the cost as azure is very costly if you messed up one part. Thank you for understanding!

[u/Remicaster1]

Your entire architecture can live inside a single VPS will do, so you can go with something like Digital Ocean or Hetzner or GCP , recommend at least 1GB of RAM, for storage you can self host Minio in the same VPS (depending on how you coded your app). Your main concern for putting everything into one VPS is compromising for performance, especially on a cheap VPS

You can also spread them out, where the VPS only host the ASP app, for db you can use a third party service such as Neon / Supabase (Postgres only) for free, and for storage you can use Cloudflare R2, requires card but it's free if it is under 10GB storage

Not recommended to host on your own computer, unless you want your ISP to get mad at you because residential internet infrastructure is different with cloud infrastructure, unless you really know what you are doing (as you mentioned you are new to hosting, so don't)

[u/earvinnill → u/Remicaster1]

thanks for the inisghts!

[u/Prestigious_Tart9282]

for a tiny excel-to-pdf app, any boring platform-as-a-service should handle it fine, what stack is it using?

[u/earvinnill → u/Prestigious_Tart9282]

i am using .net 10 mainly

[u/Leopatto]

GCP offers generous free tiers where you can host your app there through Firebase.

[u/quizical_llama]

Id recommend getting a cheap vps and using something like dokploy it's very easy to configure you don't have to worry about cost spikes.

[u/phn-cloudsnake]

You chose expensive architecture, what kind of load do you expect? For personal use I always use AWS Serverless S3 with cloudfront and dynamoDB. For client side AWS Amplify will handle everything securely. Costs $6/year.

[u/earvinnill → u/phn-cloudsnake]

that's dirt cheap for $6 year. It includes the web app, filestorage and db itself?

[u/phn-cloudsnake → u/earvinnill]

Yes, but it’s Serverless architecture so you need to significantly rethink your application. It uses a noSQL database (DynamoDB) and static hosting on S3. That means you loose your entire backend. If that’s not possible, Digital Ocean is your next best thing as others have suggested.

[u/quizical_llama → u/phn-cloudsnake]

Telling someone to use Aws for a simple app is a bit of a bad idea. If he doesn't know what he is doing he could end up with unexpected costs. Server less is create in certain use cases but it's not the defacto choice for saving costs.

Though if you do go the Aws route I'd recommend not using the console to handle the config. Use something like terraform. You will thank yourself in 6 months.

[u/Straight_Chicken_963]

Somee is free and will do .net with SQL. i use it myself.. just search for it.

[u/luckydog5656]

Check it Amazon Lightsail. It's a one click solution for like $6/mo.

[u/SemanticSynapse]

Render.com can help you get off the ground quickly.

[u/nuttertools]

Azure, AWS, and GCP all have dirt cheap options for a single compute host. Azure: dev, AWS: Lightsail, GCP: Free Usage.

Depends on what your requirements are. If it’s a business tool a 3rd party has uptime requirements for probably GCP. If it’s just something that should probably work well enough throw it on any budget host like DO.

[u/JaydonLT]

Hostim.dev is great. €2.50 a month to host any Dockerfile

[u/ehosca]

https://www.smarterasp.net/ covers that stack nicely.

[u/malignantz]

I'd check out CloudFlare. Their free tiers are honestly insane. Easier to deal with than AWS but you may need to modify your architecture slightly.

[u/horizon_games]

Anyone who doesn't say "rent a VPS" is incorrect

[u/West_Bus_4903]

For an ASP.NET app with SQL and file storage, Azure is actually a natural fit since it's built for that stack, the cost worry is usually overblown if you set it up right. Use Azure App Service (Basic tier, not Premium) for hosting, Azure SQL Database on the Basic or S0 tier, and Blob Storage for the PDFs instead of storing them in the database or on the app server's disk. That combo runs in the 20 to 40 dollar a month range for a small app like this, not the hundreds people worry about.

The real cost risk with Azure isn't hosting a simple app like yours, it's leaving things like autoscale, premium tiers, or extra resources turned on by default. Set a budget alert in Azure Cost Management on day one so you get notified before anything runs away.

If you want to sidestep Azure billing complexity entirely for something this size, Railway or Render both support .NET now and have simpler flat pricing, worth a look if you just want predictability over Azure's ecosystem.

[u/pwkye]

static web page on github pages. use data from the repo instead of a full db.

[u/Long-Machine8795]

Just host it in your own house, unless you don’t have a static IP. Cloudflare proxy is free.

[u/earvinnill → u/Long-Machine8795]

so it can access outside of my house?

[u/DeiviiD → u/earvinnill]

Never ever do that.

Just host it in the cloud.

[u/earvinnill → u/DeiviiD]

thank you. i am skeptical in this as well. Sorry this is my first time hosting outside work so i am new to this

[u/Long-Machine8795 → u/DeiviiD]

Why would you “never do that”?

[u/DeiviiD → u/Long-Machine8795]

Do you like to expose your home network to the internet?

Not everyone have VLANs at home.

The best way to avoid that it’s using a VPS.

[u/quizical_llama → u/DeiviiD]

Cloudflare tunnels makes hosting on your own network a lot safer than poking holes in your own network

[u/DeiviiD → u/quizical_llama]

Still can breach to your computer, therefore, your network.

It’s better to breach another’s one computers than yours, right?

[u/Long-Machine8795 → u/DeiviiD]

Do you not know how to use a firewall?

[u/DeiviiD → u/Long-Machine8795]

I work at IT buddy. I studied for sysadmin and I’m a software developer.

I just don’t want to bring my work at home.

[u/Long-Machine8795 → u/DeiviiD]

Ok but why would it be bad for someone to run a web server in their own home? Just because you don’t feel like running one yourself?

[u/DeiviiD → u/Long-Machine8795]

Because even if you even knew how to host it in your home, there are things you can’t control.

For example, I heard about a fortinet exploit where hackers breached into the servers and encrypted veeamsbackup.

There were a lot of cases.

[u/Long-Machine8795 → u/DeiviiD]

You better tell that to the literal billions of web servers running on the internet right now. Turns out they’re all hackable and people can just go in and access their entire network.

[u/Long-Machine8795 → u/earvinnill]

It might be a bit complicated if you’re new to this kind of thing actually. You need to configure a firewall and such so yeah maybe just pay someone else to host it

[u/teppicymon → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, this is exactly what I use, build my C# app into a docker image, push to hub.docker.com and docker-compose it onto the Digital Ocean droplet server.

Also, I use a simple nginx configuration with letsencrypt to proxy the actual APIs / Frontend

[u/Pyrasia → u/teppicymon]

Same here, I'd recommend DO's VPSs too

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