Recommendations for Bare-Bones Hosting for Our New Journal of Free Speech Law

Right now our site, JournalOfFreeSpeechLaw.org, forwards to a UCLA page I've set up, but I'd rather have it operate as a separate site with fixed URLs (so that articles we post will be permanently accessible at, say, http://JournalOfFreeSpeechLaw.org/authorname.pdf). My expectation would be that I'd just FTP the files over there, and won't need any fancy services (not even blog hosting). I doubt we'd need a lot of storage; our first issue, for instance, will have 14 articles that will take up only 15 megabytes or less, though we may occasionally post more substantial datasets or sources that our articles cite. Nor would we likely use up a lot of bandwidth.

What's the more reliable, decently easy-to-use hosting service for that? We have some money for that, though naturally I don't want to be too spendthrift with our donor's funds.

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

On that scale, you could set up a server in your bathroom.

Just joking, the humidity would be bad for the computer. But unless you’re anticipating a huge amount of traffic, why not just host it yourself? The most difficult step is persuading your ISP to give you a static IP address.

And you’re guaranteed nobody will deplatform you…

[Eugene Volokh]

I appreciate the suggestion, and I’d consider it for something which I expected to be sufficiently controversial. But we’re sufficiently mainstream and academic that I’m not worried about it right now; and if things get much worse and our hosting service kicks us off, it shouldn’t hard to quickly switch over.

And setting that aside, I just don’t want to have to worry about the site going down if I have computer problems here at home or have a power outage or what have you; and I’d like to have someone I can reach out to for technical support. Division of labor is my friend here, I think.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

” we’re sufficiently mainstream and academic ”

A lofty aspiration, but . . . dream on.

[padangitik]

I use Linode servers to host some simple websites like that. Reliable, easy, cheap, and setting up FTP transfers and even a simple “Welcome” index page could take less than a day. I could help set it up pro bono (though the third-party Linode subscription wouldn’t be free).

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I second that. I’ve had a couple of Linode nodes for 10-15 years, and always rock solid. They have transferred the node from city to city a couple of times, and I never noticed. Absolutely top-notch responses the few times I’ve asked questions. They aren’t heavy traffic nodes, maybe that changes the experience, but it doesn’t sound like you’d be heavy traffic either.

[Charles Nichols - CRTC]

I use A2 hosting and have now for a couple of years. They are much better than GoDaddy. Their lowest-priced plan is currently $2.99 a month that includes 100GB of storage, which should be more than enough for your needs.

http://www.a2hosting.com/refer/185276

[ReadMyLips88]

I recommend using GitHub or Gitlab, with a CDN front end like Cloudflare. There’s lots of bloggers who have posted examples. You could run that completely for free (minus the domain registration fees) or determine whether those services have extras worth purchasing.

[balthisar]

For a static website with no server-side needs? AWS. It’s cheap; it’s mirrored locally throughout the world; and has great uptime. Host your files in a bucket, and cloudfront takes care of the rest. Free HTTPS.

[Pete S.]

NearlyFreeSpeech.net sounds like it’d be a perfect fit. I’ve hosted with them for about a decade and they’ve been affordable, reliable, and dedicated to free speech.

[dunlop212]

I have been using x10hosting premium for my site (trialdex.com) since 2018. It is 5 bucks a month, and I think they throw in a free domain registration. I FTP with winscp, but the site has free tools for that as well, including apps that give you detailed stats. No limits on storage or bandwidth.

[Jimmy the Dane]

If all you need is some simple rackspace facing the web, any shared hosting service should do. Going through your domain registrar is probably going to be the easiest when setting up DNS. You can use a one page WordPress theme for a simple welcome page including links to articles publicly available. That shouldn’t take more than a few hours to set up and not much time to maintain.

[jrlevine]

As others have noted, a site that small can be hosted anywhere for cheap, although most of the suggestions like Linode give you a somewhat configured virtual host and it’s up to you to do the rest and maintain it which doesn’t seem like a great use of your time.
I’d suggest a simple WordPress site at either wordpress.com or dreamhost.com. They take care of the maintenance and upgrades, you just set up the theme (once) and add pages as needed.

[Robert Efroymson]

I’ve found these guys to be reasonably reliable, and very inexpensive:
https://www.bluehost.com/cs

[mydisplayname]

As a comment above notes, BlueHost is an inexpensive and reliable hosting service with full functionality. Servage is another and is not US-based (which has some advantages).

Both of those hosting services can both support multiple domains and multiple websites within one account, potentially reducing costs. Both also support DokuWiki, which has the subtle advantage that all content is stored in plain text files (rather than in a database) while offering all standard Wiki markup and media features.

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[DaveM]

The real question to ask is about who will administer the site, upload the files, and configure the web pages, and what skill level those persons will be expected to have.

If you expect end users to upload their own material, they’ll need help. Use ghost or WordPress etc. in that case. If you have an experienced maintainer, then I second the suggestion to host on AWS S3.

[DaveM]

Also, one benefit of a “pure” blogging platform like ghost is it handles the needs of a membership model so well and completely out of the box. Subscribers, newsletters, access levels, it’s all already there. This is not an endorsement of ghost per se, that just happens to be the blog app I’m familiar with. I’m just pointing out that “hosting” may really just one part of what you’ll eventually want.

[James K. Polk]

I’ve run a small website for our retirement club for a few years, and recently we had to switch hosting providers. I’ll recommend two: a2hosting.com and siteground.com. They have a tier called ‘shared hosting’ which sounds perfect for your needs. In fact, the lowest and cheapest level of their offerings would be almost overkill for your needs. Look at, for example, the “STARTUP” shared hosting level at https://www.a2hosting.com/web-hosting.

I also tell you who to avoid, because we had these guys it was a disaster: any company owned by Endurance International Group. They might be a little cheaper but it’s not worth the savings. You can see the list of companies they own on their wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group. Avoid those companies!

[Caphon]

I’d recommend digitalocean.com. Easy to set up, highly flexible, and low cost, scalable to needs.

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