Web Hosting Providers TERRY HALL

Requirements  FREE  No advertising  FTP access (or another secure transfer method)  Near 100% uptime  Adequate storage

The Choices  Github  Self-Hosted  Weebly

Github  Github is a code/web hosting service that encourages collaboration amongst it’s users.  Because of this collaboration, it is easy to contribute to a wide variety of open source projects.  At the heart of Github lies Git, a version control system that allows developers to keep a revision history of their code.

Why Choose Github?  Free, though you can pay a small monthly fee to make your repo private.  No advertising  Reputable – used by many big name companies.  SSH or HTTPs access to upload files. Users also have access to a Desktop app that can be used to sync files with their repository. The Github desktop app

Why Choose Github?  100% uptime  Version control -- Easier collaboration & trivial to revert changes. My Github website

So what’s the catch?  Limited to static pages (html, css, etc.)  Strict limit of 100MB on individual file size & a 1GB repository limit.

Self-Hosted If you’re a do-it-yourself type of person & interested in building a website, you may consider hosting the website yourself.  Why pay someone else to host your website?  Why deal with the hassle of finding a free web hosting service that isn’t littered with ads? I’ve personally set up a Raspberry Pi as a network share / web server & have had no major issues.

Why Choose Self-Hosting?  You have complete control over not only the web page, but also the PC/server it’s hosted on.  Easy to use software for setting up web server environments. LAMP comes to mind:  Linux or Windows OS  Apache HTTP Server  MySQL database  PHP server side scripting  Easy file sharing with FTP & SMB services.  Easy access to your server from the outside world with NAT / port forwarding.  Version control  Subversion, Git, etc.

Pitfalls of Self-Hosting  It can be difficult & time consuming if it’s your first time setting everything up. There are a plethora of things to learn.  It’s not always the cheapest option & not always free. A Raspberry Pi can be a cheap option (under $50), but it’s still not free.  If your site goes down, there is nobody to assist you with getting it back online. The 100% uptime requirement is entirely up to you.

Weebly  Weebly is a web hosting service that attempts to make the site-building process much easier for everyone.  Weebly was founded by three college friends who were looking for a way to help others build professional looking websites.  Weebly offers both free & paid plans, depending on the services you want.

Why Choose Weebly?  FREE  Easy to use – drag & drop website builder & many templates to choose from. Upload files with ease through the builder tools.  Built-in HTML / CSS editors  Unlimited pages  support option & Knowledge base if/when you have issues with your website.

Weebly Downsides  Very restrictive when compared to the other two Web Hosting options I’ve listed.  The FREE plan is missing a lot of the key features the paid versions offer:  No domain name  No embedded video players  No way to remove the “Create a free Weebly website” footer.  10MB individual file limit

Conclusion & Recommendation My choice will be Github for the projects in this course. I recommend using Github because it takes the hassle out of setting up a web server but also lets the user maintain complete control over the website’s content.