this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Not exactly a self-hosting thing, but I'd like to know if anyone has experience with this service. Is it worth it? A scam? I don't know. I don't really have the hardware to truly self-host a Lemmy instance (mostly because of storage restrictions), but I'd like to know if this service that seems cheap for what it offers if legit.

I know that this isn't a pure self hosting question, but I nailed .com domain for $1/year and was wondering if it's actually worth doing this. Any insight is appreciated.

Editing to add that I'd love to do pure self-hosting here, but storage is a real issue.

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[–] kntadmin@lemmy.knthost.com 13 points 1 month ago

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out. TL;DR: We're real people, a real business, providing a real Lemmy service.

Lemmy is provided as a fully managed hosting service on our scale-out App Cloud. This includes automatic updates, backups, and customized security. Note, this is not a VPS. It's a custom built infrastructure designed specifically for applications. While you have direct SSH access, Lemmy is provided as SaaS. Essentially, you don't need to lift a finger. Just use Lemmy and we'll work in the background to keep it running.

Technicians are trained in Lemmy, and provide direct support for the application. That includes support for related software such as Voyager, or Mlmym.

The business is registered as Operation Enterprise, a Florida LLC. Document number: L09000070587

You can find additional information including our FAQs and policies at https://www.knthost.com/policies

To get started, simply order service at https://www.knthost.com/lemmy and point your domain(s).

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

[–] seang96@spgrn.com 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Curious here how is storage an issue? Lemmy is 90% text and if you do the proxy for pictures its like 10%. If you use pictures from elsewhere and don't use pictures it's all text. I have had lemmy hosted for over a year now and it's using under 35GB. I have a not that subscribes to top posts on larger instances so I should have a lot of communities loaded.

Edit: oh yeah Pictrs integrates with S3 api now so you can offload image storage to cloud for pennies.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

It is an issue for me because the only machine I have is my daily driver laptop, and I'd really rather not take up even that 35GB if it can be helped.

[–] seang96@spgrn.com 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ah yeah it sucks to host on your actual computer, especially if you are using the laptop portably. I just wanted to point out storage isn't too bad if setup right. Best of luck finding a good host for your needs!

[–] spyd4r@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What about a pi and an external drive?

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean sure, that would be great, but I don't have that.

[–] spyd4r@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I was just providing a possible low cost solution. Either way, keep up the self hosting good work!

[–] Perhyte@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

No idea about the Lemmy hosting bit, but I highly doubt that .com you got will renew at $1 going forward. Judging by this list it'll most likely be $9+ after the first year.

At $1/year, the registrar you used is taking a loss because they pay more than that to the registry for it. They might be fine with that for the first year to get you in the door, but they'd presumably prefer to be profitable in the long term.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 month ago

Yeah, that's partially why I'd need info as to if this Lemmy host is legit. I have the domain (technically), and if the price jumps I'd be ok with that. I paid upfront for a couple years at $1/yr. Yeah, the registrar might screw me over, but at the price I've paid, there's not a lot of risk. I really need feedback on the Lemmy host.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not sure. The website looks alright. I always have a look at the contact details and see if it's a proper company. It says K&T is a brand name of "Operation Enterprise" which doesn't give any results when googling it. So I'd be wary. But check for yourself.

You can just pay for a month and see what happens? But I'd add: $11.25 USD isn't very cheap for a VPS with that specifications. For that price you could also pick lots of other hosting providers. You'd just have to set up Lemmy yourself.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You are quite right in that it is not a cheap VMS. Since I don't know 100% how to set thing up, though, the cost might be worth my time.

I may just pay for it and report back as a service to the community.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sure. I'd say the price is alright if they manage everything for you. There is some labor involved in designing such a platform, packaging the applications, maintaining the infrastructure, preparing updates etc and offering support of an application level. If they do that, it's probably worth the additional bucks. I maintain some services myself and get away way cheaper. But there is a substancial investment in time to learn webhosting and maintaining stuff.

[–] yonder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I know for me personally, its worth the time to set things up myself since I usually learn something new along the way. If you don't care about the learning aspect and just want the finished product, paying someone else is probably a good idea.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Good point. I think it's super important to make this decision early on. Whether you want to invest time and do self hosting, or not and you'll want to use managed services or regular non-free platforms. Doing things by yourself certainly teaches a lot. I do it. And I gain knowledge, independence and I think it's important to understand the tools I use on a regular basis and not let Apple/Google take care of my life. And since I do a lot of things with computers, I can make good use of the gained knowledge. However I can also feel how someone wouldn't want to do that. They might have other hobbies, a stressful job or a family and it's quite some time that I spend digging through configuration files, reading documentation and maintaining stuff. It has to be worth it in some way, or it becomes a liability. And I think that's not super obvious when starting the journey. I'm glad we have managed services which give independence without spending too much time. But I also prefer going all the way and learning lots of stuff.

[–] BlueEther@no.lastname.nz 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

you could probably find cheaper with more to do more

I see you mentioned the free Oracle cloud servers, they are not simple to use like many cloud VPS. But if you wanted to go down that route then if you get a full account with a CC on file then you can normally get the ampere instance (still free)

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

Ok, but I've only a remote idea of what you're saying. Can you elaborate?

[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

It sure was a handful to configure the 15GB S3 onject storage to use in Veeam. Took me about 30-45min trying to find a guide on how to set it up with Veeam.

[–] rhys@lemmy.rhys.wtf 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't know this host but hosts that will spin up single services like this for you are fairly common. Tons of people use them for Mastodon hosting.

I'd consider just using cloud hosting or getting a VPS though, with which you'll be able to do much more.

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've been waiting for the free Oracle cloud to open up (I know that's super rare). Is there a goof VPS you can recommend?

[–] rhys@lemmy.rhys.wtf 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can't; I'm out of the loop with VPS providers. I think if I needed one nowadays I'd look at small providers located near me.

I was using Linode for my many web apps and self-hosting projects until fairly recently, but when Akamai rebranded them and raised prices I moved to a Hetzner dedicated host, which worked out cheaper with my workloads. I run everything in LXC containers, all of which join my Tailscale/Headscale tailnet, and all of which get backed up to both my local NAS and to rsync.net (using rclone's crypt module).

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks, I'll look into this stuff.

[–] Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
LXC Linux Containers
NAS Network-Attached Storage
SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access
VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)

5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

[Thread #975 for this sub, first seen 17th Sep 2024, 10:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

[–] jawa21@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 month ago

OK, this bot is very useful. Thanks to .. whoever.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

a [...] infrastructure

The uncountable becomes countable.