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Comment by singingwolfboy | Hacker News Reader

The author didn't even consider hosting on AWS directly, using S3? It's super cheap -- the biggest expense is buying a domain and hosting DNS. And HTTPS is straightforward as well, thanks to Certificate Manager!

I recently wrote a tutorial for how to get a static site set up with S3 and CloudFront: https://www.davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/deploy-static-site-a... I'm curious if others would find it useful?

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I was just about to say the same! I've been VERY happy with my AWS static hosting via cloudfront. It's cheap, fast, and reliable. I can even deploy my site from the command line with this [1]!

It's very fast because it only pushes diffs. I use a bit of command line scripting to create an zip archival copy (for historical reasons) and to push the site to AWS just by doing:

$./deploy.sh

[1] https://github.com/laurilehmijoki/s3_website

Nice guide. I have my personal site on the same AWS S3/Cloudfront combo and I effectively only pay for the domain name ($12/yr) and certificate (~$35 for a 2 year?). AWS invoices me monthly for ~$0.05/month in fees with a credit that erases the charge, so I'm not actually paying for hosting. If you're unfamiliar with AWS it can be daunting, but it's mostly initial setup to get it working then uploading changed files whenever you update the site, which was a better choice for me than $5/$10/whatever each month for little or no additional benefit. I'd recommend it for anyone with a static site. I think you'd need a lot of traffic and/or updates to the site to incur $10/month in fees on AWS.

I agree with you, $10 in AWS fees sounds like a lot of traffic. That's also why Netlify has a free tier. We leave paid plans for people with more traffic. We event have a redundant DNS service for people that really really need it. For your needs is completely free of charge and hassle :)

PS: As I pointed below, I'm the CTO of Netlify.

I was just looking at your pricing. :) All in all Netlify does offer a compelling service for this scope. I'm also interested in the Pro tier being free for OSS, that's fantastic!

To be fair, setting up AWS for the first time is a real PITA and I happen to have had it all set up (IAM, buckets, command line, etc) already, so my barrier to entry was low. Had I known of Netlify when I first moved my site to AWS I probably would have gone with Netlify for the convenience and free HTTPS cert.

Great tutorial. Really well written, I'll check out what else you've written for sure. It is how ever ~20 pages long. And all of it can be done with a _single_ commandline in Netlify. Just saying :)

For you folks keeping track at home, Netlify is $108/yr for the lowest tier that lets you use a custom domain, while grandparent's advice is about $7/yr ($6/yr for Route 53 + "negligible" hosting and bandwidth).

Not to dump on Netlify, just reacting to those sly little not-really-equivalent promotions.

That's not correct.

Actually the completely Free tier gives you custom domain and HTTPS. And it also gives you Continuous Delivery. Again for free.

And for open source projects you even get the Pro Tier for free.

(discl.: As written in post below, and in my profile description I'm from Netlify)

If you're really a cheapskate and don't wanna pay $6/year for Route 53, Hurricane Electric offers free anycasted DNS hosting [0] for personal use.

(I don't currently use it but I have in the past, primarily because they'll slave off of your own master.)

[0]: https://dns.he.net/

It looks like I was incorrect, and ChristianBach is right. I'm sorry for spreading misinformation. I misread their pricing info.

A quick glance indicates your tutorial is the right one for me. I'll follow it and update my personal site this weekend and perhaps provide you feedback?

My personal site uses S3, but I hadn't thought to set up cloudfront in order to enable SSL. This is perfect, thanks!

I wouldn't call using AWS straightforward unless you're a developer. Heck your own tutorial is about 10 pages/screenfuls long.

that tutorial is pretty awesome, very well written.

Netlify can do everything you explain there by running one single command line. Check this video out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfFenanuRnc&feature=youtu.be

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