Elixir Deployment Options

I’ve got some experience in deploying Elixir and Phoenix apps in Digital Ocean and Amazon Web Services. The use case of both is quite different:

• DO: Very easy and friendly to deploy. Simple options. Cheaper in general than AWS. I’d recommend for small apps.

• AWS: Has many more options and features. Learning AWS can take a lot of time if you want to use it to its potential but it’s the way to go for large enterprise apps.

What is your monthly spend?

Personally I would recommended dedicated servers.

My monthly spend would be around $14 for smaller apps
to up to $100- $250 for the larger ones. Monthly.
Database servers and backups are included.

These are Debian VM’s at the moment. but looking to find a more efficient home for the smaller applications that we hold for our customers.

If for the small apps you just needs VM’s then I recommend Digital Ocean. However, remember that the data’s location should always be a concern.

I would just get a dedicated server and run all your apps on it until you need another one. By the sound of it it could save you a lot of money.

In terms of vps we all may know the classical names. What do you recommend for a dedicated server? I’m curious.

Elixir runs pretty decently on your average Linux machine.

I’m based in the UK, so look at low-cost European companies such as Leaseweb, Redstation, Hetzner, Rapidswitch etc

If you are in the US there are loads of dedicated server hosts there - I would look at reviews on webhostingtalk.com as I haven’t used a US host myself for a while now, but I know there are lots of low-cost suppliers as bandwidth in the US is cheap.

It really depends on your budget when deciding on what to go for, more usually means better service not necessarily better/bigger server.

In terms of OS - I would use CentOS as it has been rock solid for me for the last 7 years. If hosting multiple sites/email etc, use a control panel such as Webmin - it will make your life much easier

I’m also looking for advice here. Amazon’s RDS service is pretty expensive, but the ease of creating a database and a read replica is hard to beat. At the very least, I’d like a host that provides DB setup and backups.

Heroku has db backups according to the docs…but I haven’t used Heroku and actually needed it, so I’m curious how reliable that process is.

DigitalOcean has an auto installer for elixir; have folks found that it works fine?

Has anyone used Lets Encrypt successfully with any host? If so, with actual elixir based tooling, or just some more general solution?

What is your budget @ckhrysze?