I use a smattering of online services to host and run my own websites, internal systems and applications. As I've recently found myself advising friends and clients alike on hosting solutions, it seems an appropriate time to write about the services I use and why I've made those choices.

My online hosting requirements fell into three broad categories: websites, email and development systems. I decided to use a mix of the Google App Engine, Google Apps and a Linode VPS.

Web Hosting

I've used shared hosting for many years to put (mostly static) websites online. As my requirements changed, shared hosting seemed to become increasingly expensive for something that can offer unreliable performance and a very limited set of features. As soon as a database was required, it became more and more obvious that I'd outgrown this type of hosting.

The alternatives to shared hosting seemed to be even more expensive: both in terms of configuration time and monthly cost. A dedicated server was simply out of the question and a even a virtual private server (VPS) seemed to be somewhat overkill for my needs at this point. 

The Google App Engine turned out to be almost perfect: application hosting on Google's infrastructure with a large free quota. I later discovered a nifty little CMS designed to run on the App Engine and gradually migrated my sites across to it. I now pay absolutely nothing for website hosting and have a full blown CMS with live editing features.

Email

One of the things I stood to lose by cancelling my shared hosting plan was the email service for my domains. I'd long used Gmail for personal email and found the interface to be straightforward and powerful, so Google Apps became the logical choice to fill this gap. Google Apps is free for small groups of up to 50 users, so it became another zero cost solution that provided many more features. 

Using Google Sync, I get Exchange-like push email, contacts and calendaring on my iPhone for all of my domain email accounts as well as mail validation with DKIM and SPF. Google Apps also allows the use of your own domains for App Engine applications.

The VPS

Every day, I use version control software to keep my source code safe, wiki software to keep specifications and issue tracking software to manage development. I'd hosted this setup on an old desktop machine until the constraints of a consumer internet connection made the services slow and unreliable when not on the local network. I decided to host these services online and after deciding that a dedicated server was still out of the question, I set about looking at VPS providers.

I initially looked at Slicehost and Rackspace as I've heard good things about both companies. Their services seemed reasonably competitive, but the memory allocation seemed a little bit low for the price. I also briefly looked at 1and1's offerings (they were my shared provider before), but weasel words like "up to" in their memory description made me steer well clear.

I'd almost completely decided on Linode as they seemed to offer the most memory for the price and seemed to have a refreshing, no-nonsense approach. I decided to keep thinking, but my decision time was cut short by a $100 credit offer that was just too good to pass up. I signed up to Linode during the offer window, bagged the $100 credit and never looked back.

Today, my Linode powers Subversion, Atlassian Confluence, JIRA and Crowd as well as providing proxy services and file hosting with Squid and Apache. Performance has been excellent and the Linode Manager has made it straighforward to monitor resources and host my DNS zones. There is even an iPhone app that allows access to all of the Linode Manager's features while on the go.

If you decide to sign up for Linode, feel free to use my referral code: 61fe8c4dcece7df06c9163aa668e2b7066462a71. (Disclaimer: I'll get $20 off my hosting bill if you stick around for 90 days.)