Recently at Schipul we began conversion of Django/Python Hosting from Slicehost to Amazon Web Services. Why? A few reasons:
- More Features: load balancing, database replication, queuing services, and S3 Services.
- Better Pricing: For a small 1.7GB AMI it costs around $70/month vs $100/month for a 1.5GB slice. You can also use reserved instances if your absolutely sure of your configuration.
- Flexibility: Elastic IPs, Elastic Storage, Elastic Load Balancing, more OS choices, and community AMIs.
- Security: Security groups allow for a locked down firewall and it’s easy to open/close ports. Also, by default, all instances require private ssh keys to connect.
- Mobility: the iAWSManager iPhone app is great. If you have TouchTerm you can even ssh right from your iPhone!
I’m not dogging on Slicehost. They definitely have a fantastic product with a better User Interface and good support system. If your looking for a bare bones, ready to custom configure system without all the extra meat then Slicehost is your goto service. Not to mention they are not stingy on the dedicated IP addresses. Once your product starts requiring load balancing, replication, memcached, queuing, and daily backups (Individual databases/webs and not just a snapshot of the volume) then it’s much easier to configure/run on Amazon.
Some other upcoming python/django hosting services that are worth checkout out are:
- Stableoi – http://stable.io/
- Djangozoom – http://djangozoom.com/
- Linode – http://www.linode.com
If you have an recommendations/input on Hosting Services I would love to hear from you!
Linode seems to be a great deal, although we (Activeinterview.com) are using AWS.
Thanks Sandeep. I checked out Linode and it seems slightly better priced than Slicehost. I do like the plans and availability section. It sells you with the numbers on availability.