i use hosthatch, small but cheap and always reliable for the last 3 years
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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Do you want all of that to be managed (DB, mailboxes, web-hosting,...) or just reliable hardware in "the cloud"?
For the latter, Hetzner.
Hetzner provides managed web hosting too. For emails I think you need to look for some other provider.
Huh, didn't know. Thanks. I guess Hetzner is the right answer in both cases then 😄
Hetzner ❤️
Seconding Hetzner. I recently went on a bibge and moved as many services away from US based companies over to EU based ones, Hetzner being my choice for webhosting, S3 storage and VPS (which I rarely need thanks to my homelab).
Or their subsidiary: Netcup.
A few people I know are using IONOS or Netcup for webhosting. They offer a lot more than just webhosting, if anyone needs a VPS, go for Netcup.
Maybe you can checkout European alternatives too to find what you are looking for 😊
I used a NetCup VPS for a while but it would repeatedly have terrible performance, presumably because whoever I was sharing the server with was hammering the machine.
I rent the ARM VPS in Nürnberg, cheap and high performance. I don't have any issues. Last time I had issues was with Contabo VPS. My main server is a dedicated one at Hetzner. Can recommend this one too.
I see you have a bunch of good answers now, so I’ll ask; if you are comfortable self hosting, why not consider a VPS? Yes it can be a little bit of maintenance, but it’s very minimal and you get far more flexibility and the ability to further develop those selfhosting chops.
I pay ~8€ per month at DreamHost, for many, many domains and databases and mailboxes. I worry that having to maintain a VPS myself is tedious and risky, and there's no automatic backups, and there's no tech support, and it can't possibly be as cheap. I'm fine hosting some stuff at home, but for some things (like mailboxes) I want a real independent service I can trust.
I worry that having to maintain a VPS myself is tedious and risky
I have three VPS, and a rack in the closet. As far as maintenance is concerned, once you get everything set up and secured, there's not a whole lot to 'maintain', imho. I check logs, make sure all the baddies are at bay and all my good stuff is secured. I leverage technology to help me. I get a summary in the morning telling me all services are up. I do that with n8n, but you certainly could put together something more than my basic n8n flow. I use Docker containers a lot, so I have dockerbot to check that all services are up and running. Dockerbot allows me to stop/start/restart containers. I use UptimeKuma to also keep track of services and send me updates, and I use the iOS app for UptimeKuma which has a handy widget.
Once a month I run sudo apt update / sudo apt full-upgrade to make sure everything is updated. NBD there if you do it regularly and don't skip a lot of updates/upgrades. Backups happen every night using the 3,2,1 method and backed up to an offsite facility. I have a bot that at regular intervals during the day, issue sudo lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:ESTABLISHED and several other commands to the servers and reports back.
All of this may sound like a lot, but really once you get everything grooving, it's jippity jippity. I do business with:
- Contabo
- Ethernet Services
- LuxVPS
One thing I've learned through the years is that one man's dream VPS service, is another man's nightmare VPS service. Making recommendations is kind of hit and miss for this reason.
UberSpace. Managed hosts, but you get SSH access and they have a manual for the basics as well as user-contributed guides for specifics.
It’s ran by nerds and the only limit is your allotted disk space (10GB by default). Unlimited email accounts, unlimited aliases, etc.
“Pay what you can afford” model starting at 5€/month.
Hostinger is the closest I can think of. They do have limits but they are very high for the price (which is actually true of dreamhost too, they just aren't honest with you until you hit them).
I use both IONOS for domains and webhosting and a VPS from Host Unlimited, they also offer webhosting, but I haven't tried it yet. I'm happy with both. Host unlimited apparently has a tier with unlimited mailboxes.
I’m curious about the same thing, but also curious what you’re using your traditional hosting for. I also have had DH shared hosting for years and never had an issue. I don’t know if I’m ready to drop it, but not sure if I still need it.
I'm still a huge DH fan. It's just that the latency from Europe is noticeable, and also there's an increased risk that some self-proclaimed dicktator might do something stupid so I lose access to my account and my mailboxes. We've all read the horror stories of people suddenly being permabanned by Google and losing access to all their precious data. I'm trying to cover some scenarios here.