Hetzner, Sliplane, Render, Hashmaps (?!?!), Upstash - Picking a hosting provider for your Redis database can be challenging, especially with all the awesome options available. Analysis Paralysis is real 😵💫. Who wins the race for the cheapest redis provider?
1. Hetzner
Hetzner is a German Cloud Provider with Locations in Europe and North America, with a wide variety of compute options including ARM, dedicated, and shared servers. Hetzner is loved by developers, with 70% saying that they want to continue using them according to the latest Stackoverflow survey. Hetzner provides incredibly cheap but at the same time basic servers.
Hosting a simple Redis database isn't actually that complicated! (If you dont need HA, autoscaling, and sharding etc.). Check out this great tutorial from Redis
Self-hosting also means that you will not have any trouble with future Redis license changes!
2. Sliplane
What if you could combine the awesome price of Hetzner with the ease of a PaaS like Heroku, Render, or Vercel? Sliplane is a PaaS on top that gives you push-to-deploy, automatic SSL, a free domain, and more for your Docker apps. Connect your GitHub account and get started in less than 5 minutes for free with a 48 hour trial. Sliplane lets you host an unlimited number of Docker Apps on your server, making it incredibly cheap if you have a large number of low-traffic apps. For example, hosting a frontend, backend, cron jobs, and Redis will only cost you 7 Euros per month.
Disclaimer: I'm the co-founder 🤫
3. Don't use Redis!
I knooow, I know. You came for cheap Redis hosting, but do you actually need Redis? Maybe just a simple in-memory hashmap or a local file is enough? Don't overcomplicate your tech stack! Really consider if the additional operational overhead is worth the performance improvements.
While this doesn't work for everything, and especially not for something that needs to be 100% reliable, sometimes it's worth it to think outside the box to save some bucks 🤑
4. Upstash
Upstash is another hosting provider that is loved by developers and has grown tremendously in the last few years.
Upstash is a bit different to the others because its "serverless". For you this mostly means that you only pay for what you use. Thats great if you have low usage, bad if you have a lot. You also trade operational complexity for additional latency, something that Redis probably shouldnt have. Upstash is a great choice if you don't think you can keep a Redis instance up, or if the base prices of the other solutions are too much!
5. Render
Last but not least, another PaaS provider that I want to mention is Render. While Render might look expensive at first, the "Zero DevOps cloud" really makes up for it by being the simplest solution in this list while also providing a free tier for Redis. In the end, the price that your database costs is not everything, you also need to consider the time you are putting in to keep everything running! Sometimes a $20 database is cheaper than a $5 database if you need to work 10 hours less per month, just keep that in mind :)
Conclusion
I hope you learned something new, and always keep in mind to include the price of your own sanity when checking out prices!
Also, I'd love to know where you are hosting your Docker apps. What features do you love, and which do you dislike? Let's discuss it!
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