Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Managed Hosting and Services : lighttpd and rails

[bosie2006]

hello,
i am looking for a managed server. the managment should include lighttpd/rails/rmagick/ruby as well as the "normal" applications (php, pop3/smtp, firewall, subversion).

i have looked into a few companies but unfortunately i haven't found a provider who supports the software i want.

any recommendations?

highly appreciated,
bosie

[LightTPD]

To tell you the truth, I ordered a dedicated server from HostGator, and although they don't support RoR, I insisted and they installed RoR with FastCGI on my server for $30. Upgrade to 1.1 was $15. They won't update it if you don't ask them, as RoR isn't part of the software they officially support.

[layer0]

I'd look at a company who specializes in RoR:

www.textdrive.com
www.planetargon.com
..etc.

[LightTPD]

Yes, and asmallorange.com too...

[bosie2006]

well, asmallorange.com doesnt take customers unforutnately

textdrive.com has no dedicated accounts do they?
layer0, do you happen to know the prices for planetargon.com, as it seems they "only" have custom quotes.

thank you lightTPD, do you run lighttpd at hostgator?

[rob5]

do you absolutely need lighttpd? a better solution would probably be apache+mongrel.. and if you want to do that - check out railsmachine.com. they're the only ones I know who specialize in just rails as far as servers go.. the owner of it is also the owner of mongrel.

[bosie2006]

Originally Posted by rob5

do you absolutely need lighttpd? a better solution would probably be apache+mongrel.. and if you want to do that - check out railsmachine.com. they're the only ones I know who specialize in just rails as far as servers go.. the owner of it is also the owner of mongrel.

but then again, they charge 350 USD for a self-managed dedicated webserver. i find that to be a bit too high.
regarding lighttpd, it is definitely prefered. but if the company who manages it only does apache+mongrel, i guess i have no choice.

[mhalligan]

Originally Posted by bosie2006

hello,
i am looking for a managed server. the managment should include lighttpd/rails/rmagick/ruby as well as the "normal" applications (php, pop3/smtp, firewall, subversion).

i have looked into a few companies but unfortunately i haven't found a provider who supports the software i want.

any recommendations?

highly appreciated,
bosie

A friend of mine who has deployed a few rails apps speaks pretty higly of Railsmachine and Planet Argon. He's got a blog at airhead.typepad.com that might shed some light on the subject.

With rails, I'd be really concerned about making sure you have a good deployment and memory caching system. Capistrano seems to solve this problem well, and is something you should ask a hosting provider about.

[bosie2006]

Originally Posted by mhalligan

A friend of mine who has deployed a few rails apps speaks pretty higly of Railsmachine and Planet Argon. He's got a blog at airhead.typepad.com that might shed some light on the subject.
With rails, I'd be really concerned about making sure you have a good deployment and memory caching system. Capistrano seems to solve this problem well, and is something you should ask a hosting provider about.

yes, but how can railsmachine justify the price?

thanks for the link, seems to be quite an interesting blog.

[mhalligan]

Railsmachine justifies the price because they know rails very well. I think their pricing is fairly reasonable, it's a lot lower than my pricing is! Go to their website and click on the "Chat" button. You can chat with some of their engineers. I'm thinking of subbing out our rails hosting to them.

Honestly, $360/month for a managed server from a company run by some of the rails authors? How can you complain about that?

[bosie2006]

Originally Posted by mhalligan

Railsmachine justifies the price because they know rails very well. I think their pricing is fairly reasonable, it's a lot lower than my pricing is! Go to their website and click on the "Chat" button. You can chat with some of their engineers. I'm thinking of subbing out our rails hosting to them.

Honestly, $360/month for a managed server from a company run by some of the rails authors? How can you complain about that?

you sure about that? it states at the top that it is self-managed...
otherwise that would be a very good offer, of course.

i will shoot them an email, to make sure.

[mhalligan]

Originally Posted by bosie2006

you sure about that? it states at the top that it is self-managed...
otherwise that would be a very good offer, of course.

i will shoot them an email, to make sure.

I guess that depends on your definition of managed. My understanding is they monitor the hardware & network on it, as well as preconfigure it for rails, mongrel, etc. I think they also do patch management.

[slicematt]

Almost all of our customer dabble in Rails. Pop into the chatroom and we can help you get started. We also offer managed hosting. One last recommendation, consider Mongrel and Apache instead of FastCGI.