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I have a site with php+mysql on shared hosting and it works well, has good traffic and I want to plan for the future when traffic to my site grows and shared hosting can't handle it.

Since the code is not trivial, rewriting is not an option, so I'd like to plan for a future site upgrade which considers these parameters:

  • The site should not be rewritten, I'd like to move the existing code over to the new hosting as is (with minor modifications at most) when the time comes
  • I'm the only developer/admin on the site and it works out well, because shared hosting is PaaS, so I don't need to bother with administering the base software, installing software updates, etc. so the new future hosting should be PaaS as well
  • It should not be too expensive, so a managed VPS and such is not an option

What are the possible hosting options which would satisfy the above conditions and allow me to handle more traffic when needed?

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  • What's your definition of too expensive? There are pretty cheap managed VPS available these days. – Aakash May 10 '16 at 20:14
  • @Aakash not too expensive compared to cheap shared hosting. So if I want to handle a bit more traffc then I would not like to several times over than what I pay now. That's what I mean by gradual upgrade. – Tom May 10 '16 at 20:33
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It would greatly depend on how much more traffic we're talking. I'm afraid this question invites "opinions", but I'll give some perspective. I'll try to avoid reviewing hosts as much as I'd like to address what you'll likely need:

  • Usage of CDN (content delivery networks) begins to become more needed.
  • Having a dedicated server (~$70/mo HostGator and Digital Ocean come to mind.)
  • Using a cloud service to handle spikes of traffic appropriately (~$100/mo to ~$2000/mo. Something like Amazon Web Services through a provider like Pagely.com, although I think Pagely.com is geared towards WordPress sites, and I'm not sure what you're using)
  • Utilizing a service such as CloudFlare to help with inevitable DDoS attacks and such.

In terms of a more gradual transition, it should be fairly easy with most providers to be put on servers with more RAM/CPU power allocated to you. And those plans are usually around the $30/mo region at places like HostGator / GoDaddy.

But I think there's lots of great options in the sub $100 range. If you need to spend more than $100 a month for the amount of traffic you're getting, well at that point, paying more than $100 a month for other high traffic solutions probably won't even be a major factor at that point.

As a final note, some of those providers don't accept all coding languages / services and you should probably research that first (eg. GoDaddy doesn't support Ruby, HostGator is no longer allowing the use of CloudFlare, etc.)

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  • Currently, I pay about $8 per month, managed vps is available for $30 and more. I wonder if there is a middle ground for a gradual transition, say I pay $15 for some more performance (paas between cheap shared hosting and managed vps). – Tom May 10 '16 at 20:36
  • Yeah, I think to do things gradually, you're going to use one of those shared hosting providers, and just use some of the upgraded resources plans (usually like $10-$15). So, those will likely work for you and is what you're looking for I think. – Tony DiNitto May 11 '16 at 0:42

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