Hosting for Node.js apps done right

Hosting for Node.js apps done right(evennode.com)

32 points by kertof 11 years ago | 40 comments

One question - does it support TCP sockets? I've evaluated a dozen or so Node.js hosting solutions and none (0, null, nil) supported TCP sockets. HTTP/S and WebSockets only. It's ridiculous - a TCP server is a major use case for Node.js and yet if you want to host it, you must configure and administrate your own server (on EC2 or whatever).

aroman 11 years ago | |

I don't think it's ridiculous. I definitely agree that acting as TCP server is one of the major intended use cases for Node.js, but in practice, I'd bet it's such a small fraction of use that most Node hosting companies decided it wasn't worth the financial investment to support that use case.

Duhck 11 years ago | |

We had the same problem. We actually wanted to use Heroku just for pre-production as it was the easiest to deploy / manage, but their TCP socket implementation is such a joke.

We would up just using AWS, and sunk a few days into dev / sys ops.

I would happily pay for a solution to this problem

yannski 11 years ago | | |

Could you elaborate a bit on "their TCP socket implementation is such a joke" ? Are you talking about the Ruppell's Sockets addon ? What's your problem with it ? What could be an improvement to it ?

marktangotango 11 years ago |

I wonder how pricing is determined for these offerings? Ie whats the driver for profitability?

My thinking is as follows: if I use a popular IAAS for servers to host customers node.js apps, and if I have instances with 15GB of ram, if I offer application instances that are allocated at most 256MB, then I can fit about 58 application instances on a server (allowing 500MB for the OS). At 6€ an instance (for the intro tier) that's 348€ a month

An EC2 M3.xlarge costs about $81 a month (3 year heavy reserved, amortizing one time payment over 36 months). Today that about 63€ a month. So they intend to make 290€ per server minus additional costs for mongodb hosting.

Does that jive with how you all figure these things?

conradk 11 years ago |

This sounds like a joke to me.

1- "Hosting for Node.js apps done right": Like everything else is done wrong? That's just weird.

2- What does "designed for cloud" mean?

3- "Free support"? How gullible do you think we are? At 6e/mo, anyone that believes they're getting any kind of "Free support" is wrong. Or else this service is going to fail big time.

Now some constructive criticism: I see "FTP access". But as a dev, I would have liked to see something like FTPS, SFTP or better yet, SSH.

drdaeman 11 years ago | |

SFTP would be a better idea, but documentation says they do support FTPS: http://www.evennode.com/docs/ftp-access#tls

As for criticism... that they charge premium for TLS on custom domains. While this is probably reasonable business decision, it does community a bit of bad service - additional costs for security discourages users from having one. And TLS already has that bar quite high.

greenimpala 11 years ago | |

Exactly my thoughts - what about "Unlimited FTP access" - a revolutionarily feature that lets you deploy your app as many times as you want! Sign me up.

romanovcode 11 years ago | |

Did you really expect a service for node.js to not use meaningless buzzwords? :)

dewey 11 years ago |

No https and the login form is submitted in plain text. That doesn't really inspire confidence.

eddieroger 11 years ago |

What are the others doing wrong that these guys are doing right? From the marketing page, it looks to be as simple as Heroku, except I already have an account there, and most of my apps run for free already.

leichtgewicht 11 years ago |

The things I miss in this "done right" approach:

- Continuous Deployment: automatic load-balancing, proper termination of instances, all seem to apply without documentation or not?!

- Redis: MongoDB for persistent data is fine in many cases but for performance nothing beats a key/value storage (also: some session storage works well with redis)

- Where is it hosted? Europe? Unusable for my location :)

jain_chirag04 11 years ago |

Irony is that their website is powered by PHP rather than node.

stephenr 11 years ago | |

That isn't irony.

There seems to be a tendency in the nodejs community to try and use it in any and every situation, regardless of how suitable it is for that situation.

BinaryIdiot 11 years ago | | |

Yeah not really ironic; I mean I would be surprised if node.js wasn't a decent or maybe even a better fit but perhaps they had more technical expertise to handle PHP development and the best way to try and start a business is to release early and often.

sheetjs 11 years ago | |

In general, how do you determine what software is running on the server side? None of the obvious links are to .php documents and the headers only indicate nginx

cturhan 11 years ago | | |

Look their cookies. You will see PHPSESSID meaning that session is provided by PHP.

Although, you can do the same with node session module it seems like php anyway.

Plus: http://builtwith.com/evennode.com

iancarroll 11 years ago | | |

There's a cookie called PHPSESSID.

_Soulou 11 years ago | | |

A PHPSESSID appears in the cookie.

marknadal 11 years ago |

Really neat to have FTP access for new JavaScript to NodeJS developers that don't know how to use git yet.

stephenr 11 years ago | |

In 2014 ftp access is not a feature, it is an alarm bell to anyone that has any concern at all for security.

listic 11 years ago | | |

I _hope_ that when they write 'FTP' they actually mean '(FTP or) SFTP'. Alas, that's no always true.

greenimpala 11 years ago | |

Don't know how to use Git but you're a NodeJS dev? Really?

SimeVidas 11 years ago | |

I have Modulus Node hosting. Deploying is as simple as running "modulus deploy" in the terminal, no git knowledge required :)

jackmaney 11 years ago | |

Well, then it's high time those folks learn git, isn't it? The basics aren't that difficult.

Or, if not git, then some other version control system. In the 21st century, a VCS really isn't optional.

cturhan 11 years ago | |

Just signed up and tried ftp access but seems like there is a problem. Most probably it's because of randomly generated ftp username

Edit: It's working but needs a time to finish deployment

randunel 11 years ago |

"Dev" price:

€ 6 / month

     1 app instance
     256MB RAM
     1GB storage
    Unlimited custom domains
    FTP access
    Free MongoDB database
    Free support

If they also have a transfer limit, then just forget about it :(

dbond 11 years ago | |

Just went looking for that, is a 2 TB Soft limit

[1] http://www.evennode.com/policy/aup

philbarr 11 years ago | |

Yes they don't seem to be offering anything above and beyond their competitors, particularly on price. Not even a free tier.

I'm not saying that companies should have a free tier "by rights", only that it's a good way to get you sucked in whilst you develop your app and then when you scale you're unlikely to change provider.

kertof 11 years ago | | |

I agree that a Free Tier is the best way to get you to adopt a tool. I'd love to build and test at very small scale, then start paying when I've launched and scaling.

spindritf 11 years ago | |

Except for the lack of ssl on the smallest plan, prices and limits seem reasonable.

Fastidious 11 years ago |

Too expensive, in my opinion. The dashboard looks nice, simple and clean though.

Kiro 11 years ago |

How does this compare to Nodejitsu? Also, do you have support for socket.io?

sogen 11 years ago |

another option: http://nitrous.io/ they offer free development boxes

listic 11 years ago | |

Windows and Mac, but no Linux support for their desktop software :(

dnns 11 years ago |

does anyone know if bower, grunt, etc. are working?

BinaryIdiot 11 years ago | |

You'd typically run those and package the results for a deployment. Unless you're using grunt to run your application it's probably unnecessary to offer that.