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[Hosting] Need reliable Ruby on Rails host.

dizastor

dizastor

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 27, 2001
625
26
Los Angeles
I'm looking to switch web hosts, my custom Ruby on Rails content management system has been hosted on site5 for about 6 months and recently their level of service has absolutely tanked.

Last weekend my site went down for no apparent reason, I had not changed any code, I hadn't done anything different. After 6 or 7 support tickets spanning 4 days I finally figured out on my own from a cron job email that the mySQL server needed to be restarted.

This past weekend the hard drive on my server went belly up (which I know happens to the best of them) The problem arose when the server was restored, all of my sites were back except the one with the Ruby on Rails application. So, back to square one I go with tech support "Do you have any specific gem dependencies?". Yes check my 12 other support tickets from the last week, and stop breaking my app. GRR

So this is my problem. I'm looking for a reliable host with spectacular service, who knows more about keeping people's RoR apps from imploding due to regular maintenance.

I'm seriously considering media temple, but they are currently beta testing their RoR package, which is supposed to be "available in the future". So, I don't know if I want to commit to them based on reliability and possibly wait months to put up the site I really switched for.

I've looked at A Small Orange, they would be ok if their bandwidth was higher. 100g/month is a bit weak, especially for $30/month.

I've also looked at TextDrive, who I think has inflated their prices just a little due to the popularity of RoR.

So, any suggestions are welcome. My base requirements are as follows:

5gb+ space
500gb+ bandwidth
Ruby on Rails
mySQL
Ability to host 20-30 sites
lighttpd - maybe
Max price $30/month

Currently my site5 plan has:
27gb space
750gb bandwidth
RoR, mySQL
Unlimited sites
$15/mo

All suggestions appreciated. :D
 
I wish I could help, but I'm actually hosted with Site5 at the moment :p

I'm currently trying to get my feet wet with RoR.. struggling a little bit, as I don't know any Ruby, but I'm trying.... let me know on what you find, as I'd be interested in this too in the future
 
Site5 has been great to me for over a year, but their support response times, and the actual content of their responses in the past 2 weeks have forced me to jump ship.

The thing that gets me is that every single time I open a support ticket that mentions Rails their response is "does your app have any gem dependencies?" Last weekend I had to wait 17 hours just to get that response.

I think they make an assumption that everyone developing a RoR site on their servers has no clue what's going on and can't get their apps running at all. They should have some sort of flagging system so that they know the person they are dealing with is competent and the problem isn't "my rails app hello world won't load, please help". Again... grr.
 
I've had my new rails app on dreamhost since May 1 and despite a couple outages at the beginning, it's been flawless since then.
 
I know you already looked into a small orange, but I just wanted to point out how happy I've been with them. Their support is A+++
 
went with textdrive and sprung for a business level account.

seems like the right decision based on their rails knowhow, support, etc. I'll update in a month or two to give textdrive a report card. ;)
 
With dreamhost's issues lately I'm thinking it's time to move on to a more reliable host now that I've had a cheap RoR sandbox to get up-to-speed with for a few months.

Any initial impressions of TextDrive so far?
 
Just thought I'd throw this in:

Was messing with RoR on A Small Orange and needed a gem installed. I sent ASO a support ticket. 2 minutes later I had a reply, and the gem was installed.

Definitely a quality host, if you guys are still looking..
 
Good to know, desenso.

My short list right now is A Small Orange, Media Temple (RoR support in the near future) and TextDrive.

My one concern with TextDrive is the issues some have had with Lighttpd (for instance).
 
EricNau said:
I know you already looked into a small orange, but I just wanted to point out how happy I've been with them. Their support is A+++
Click to expand...

I know their support is awesome I emailed them at 3AM on a Sunday night/Monday morning and got a response and the problem fixed within 10 minutes.
 
So what are you all building with Rails? Any advice on must-have reading material to get up to speed? I went through the Depot application in the Agile Web Development and I've looked at bits here and there, but I'm having trouble really getting a strong grasp of how to make the best of the framework.

And boy, is it just me, or is application deployment ugly?
 
My first real project has been a class calendar system listing courses, sections and instructors. I started with the Depot example, too, and learned enough to jump in with a fresh scaffolding and go from there.

I'm still getting comfortable with it.
 
desenso said:
And boy, is it just me, or is application deployment ugly?
Click to expand...

Deployment is a breeze. Having database migrations and capistrano are some of the perks of using rails. You probably have to use fastcgi at all the hosting companies, but personally I use Mongrel with Apache 2 as the proxy since I run my own server. Anyway, here is a nice little write up on using Mongrel, Capistrano, and Apache 2.2's mod_proxy_balancer in case you're interested in learning more.
 
I second the A+ for mongrel, very fast and very easy to get going. About 5 steps easier than any FCGI implementation I've done.
 
greenmonsterman said:
I'm looking for a reliable host with spectacular service...

I've looked at A Small Orange, they would be ok if their bandwidth was higher. 100g/month is a bit weak, especially for $30/month.

I've also looked at TextDrive, who I think has inflated their prices just a little due to the popularity of RoR.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of good advice in this thread so I won't repeat it, but I wanted to mention two things. If you want reliability and spectacular service then you have to expect higher prices. Reliability requires more hardware (and more expensive hardware) and more experienced technicians. Service also requires more knowledgeable people and more of them. In other words you have to pay for quality - so don't be surprised when the hosts people recommend as great cost more than the crummy hosts.

The other issue is that ror apps use a lot of ram (very little cpu, but a lot of ram). So if you find a host who specializes in rails apps it wouldn't surprise me that the cost of extra ram for the rails boxes gets factored into the overall cost. (ram is way more expensive than processing power).

So if you have been shopping bargain hosts and suddenly started looking for good hosts, the sticker shock can be bad, but remember the old adage that you get what you pay for.
 
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