Below you can find details on various hosting providers that are available for hosting your launcher.
Well Known, Trusted Companies
| Name |
Price |
Type |
Notes |
| 20i ⭐ |
Paid |
CDN, Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Servers |
Trusted stable web host, CDN service included, reasonable pricing |
| Fasthosts |
Paid |
Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Servers |
Long running UK-based web hosting company, good pricing |
| DreamHost ⭐ |
Paid |
Shared Hosting, Cloud Hosting, Virtual Private Servers, Dedicated Servers |
Very long running company |
| DigitalOcean ⭐ |
Paid |
Virtual Private Servers |
Reliable |
| RamNode ⭐ |
Paid |
Virtual Private Servers |
Reliable |
| Linode ⭐ |
Paid |
Virtual Private Servers |
Reliable |
| Amazon AWS |
Free for 1 year |
Cloud Hosting |
|
Note: Students can get the GitHub Student Pack, which gives $50 in DigitalOcean credit (good for 1 year of lowest tier hosting).
Reliable, But Not Recommended
| Name |
Price |
Type |
Features |
Notes |
| GitHub pages |
Free |
Static Hosting |
Unlimited space |
Your website might be taken down by modders using the DMCA |
| BitBucket |
Free |
Static Hosting |
Unlimited space |
We don't know how well this works |
| Netlify |
Free |
Static Hosting CDN |
100 GB bandwidth |
Operates primarily as a build service and CDN. Reliable, but free tier may be further limited in future. |
Potentially Unreliable
| Name |
Price |
Type |
Features |
Notes |
| InfinityFree |
Free |
Static Hosting |
|
We have no experience with this; company might disappear randomly without notice |
| Forge |
Free |
Static Hosting |
1 GB bandwidth |
We have no experience with this; company might disappear randomly without notice |
| Freehostia |
Free |
Shared Hosting |
|
Potentially unreliable |
| 000webhost |
Free |
Shared Hosting |
|
Potentially unreliable; hacked and customer database stolen in October 2015 |
Alternatives
LowEndBox is a well-known Virtual Private Server review website, although it primarily features the super cheap options so watch out for unreliable services.
Terms in the Industry
- Co-location: You build your own server computer and you rent physical space in a data center. You give them your server computer and pay for physical space, bandwidth, and electricity. This option is expensive. You also need to build an entire server from scratch (buy a case, CPU, RAM, hard drive, etc.), and if the hardware dies, it's all on you.
- Dedicated Server: They have server computers for you. You rent one of them. When you stop service, they give the server to a new customer. This option is less expensive but overkill for simply hosting files. If the server hardware dies, you can request a new one.
- Virtual Private Server: You rent part of one of their servers. You are given a certain amount of disk space, CPU and RAM on a server computer. When logging in, it looks like you have an entire operating system to yourself, but it's completely virtual. Your OS might say that you have 4 GB of RAM even if the actual server has 128 GB total shared among several people. This gives you a reasonable amount of control, and you can also host a game server or your own programs. If the server hardware dies, they will move you to a new server.
- Shared Hosting: You are simply given disk space on one of the company's servers. You cannot run your own programs. You are not assigned CPU or RAM. The company makes your files available as a website for you. If the server hardware dies, they will move your files to a new server.
- Cloud Hosting: This option works a bit differently than the others. You are not tied to any physical server. You create an "application," decide to pay for a certain amount of CPU, RAM, and your code is automatically run on any available server in the company's network.
- Content Delivery Network (CDN): You are only given disk space. What makes CDNs different is that it copies your files to tens of servers across the world, so users can download your files much quicker (as the files will be on a nearby server owned by the company). You don't deal with any specific server hardware because your files are just replicated to many servers. CDNs do not support PHP or scripting.
Note: "Managed" vs "Unmanaged" — with an unmanaged service, you are your own systems administrator. If something goes wrong, you have to fix it yourself (unless it's a hardware/hosting company issue). However, unmanaged is much cheaper.
