Cheaper Server/Hosts for EBS/middleware

Extensions
1

So after 2 months of getting things set up and running I have my client software, EBS/middleware, and extension doing what it is supposed to do. The problem is that between the node.js webapp and the database I’m paying about 90 dollars a month before I even have users. That is unsustainable for me.

I’m looking now at a static web app with azure functions, but I figure the wealth of knowledge here may have better alternatives and knows of things my research hasn’t found yet.

The server needs to act as a middleman between a client software that runs on the user’s local machine and the twitch extension. Basically the client sends json data the the middleware that then verifies the username/pw and writes the data to the database. The twitch extension can then go and grabs that data (json) to populate the displayed information. I’ve found a few services but most require an average of 70 bucks a month for the server/instance running node, and that is before getting into the database pricing.

Now my current project is a node project. However, as much as I am loathe to do it, if I have to rewrite the middleware I will. It’s just not preferred.

Obviously the closest to free is the best, I don’t expect a lot of users, maybe at most 10. Not concurrent, I expect maybe 10 people will use this, including myself.

I also don’t know what my magic number is, I just know that 90 dollars a month before it’s seeing any real use is too much.

2

I ran the Game Awards extension off a server that costs be 50 bucks a month and that peaked at 330k viewers at one point. with 200 votes a second at the peak voting point.

That server is also running four other extensions.

So you are surely shop around for a cheaper VPS or dedicated server. 90 seems super expensive.

3

Some of the Extensions I’ve worked on use AWS API Gateway, Lambda functions, and DynamoDB.

Both Lamdba and DynamoDB have a free tier, and API Gateway is reasonable for HTTP (websockets is stupidly expensive). When the Extensions are inactive, I don’t pay a cent, when there is high traffic, it scales as much as it needs (or to where I limit it). I don’t pay for any unused capacity like I would have been doing if I used a bare metal/virtual server specced to handle peak load.

4

This sounds similar to Azure static web apps. The static stuff is all free hosted, and Azure functions is cost of compute as it runs. I’ll have to dig into the DB as I don’t think there is any free DB in Azure.

I also found HostChef that gives you a node container and DB server for 9 a month, which is pretty good.