lighttpd and rails

Portal Home > Knowledgebase > Articles Database > lighttpd and rails

Posted by bosie2006, 08-22-2006, 12:20 PM
hello, i am looking for a managed server. the managment should include lighttpd/rails/rmagick/ruby as well as the "normal" applications (php, pop3/smtp, firewall, subversion). i have looked into a few companies but unfortunately i haven't found a provider who supports the software i want. any recommendations? highly appreciated, bosie
Posted by LightTPD, 08-22-2006, 08:02 PM
To tell you the truth, I ordered a dedicated server from HostGator, and although they don't support RoR, I insisted and they installed RoR with FastCGI on my server for $30. Upgrade to 1.1 was $15. They won't update it if you don't ask them, as RoR isn't part of the software they officially support.
Posted by layer0, 08-22-2006, 08:09 PM
I'd look at a company who specializes in RoR: www.textdrive.com www.planetargon.com ..etc.
Posted by LightTPD, 08-22-2006, 08:11 PM
Yes, and asmallorange.com too...
Posted by bosie2006, 08-22-2006, 08:26 PM
well, asmallorange.com doesnt take customers unforutnately textdrive.com has no dedicated accounts do they? layer0, do you happen to know the costs for planetargon.com, as it seems they "only" have custom quotes. thank you lightTPD, do you run lighttpd at hostgator?
Posted by rob5, 08-22-2006, 08:27 PM
do you absolutely need lighttpd? a better solution would probably be apache+mongrel.. and if you want to do that - check out railsmachine.com. they're the only ones I know who specialize in just rails as far as servers go.. the owner of it is also the owner of mongrel.
Posted by bosie2006, 08-22-2006, 08:32 PM
but then again, they charge 350 USD for a self-managed dedicated webserver. i find that to be a bit too high. regarding lighttpd, it is definitely prefered. but if the company who manages it only does apache+mongrel, i guess i have no choice.
Posted by mhalligan, 08-22-2006, 08:37 PM
A friend of mine who has deployed a few rails apps speaks pretty higly of Railsmachine and Planet Argon. He's got a blog at airhead.typepad.com that might shed some light on the subject. With rails, I'd be really concerned about making sure you have a good deployment and memory caching system. Capistrano seems to solve this problem well, and is something you should ask a hosting provider about.
Posted by bosie2006, 08-23-2006, 12:17 PM
yes, but how can railsmachine justify the price? thanks for the link, seems to be quite an interesting blog.
Posted by mhalligan, 08-23-2006, 12:25 PM
Railsmachine justifies the price because they know rails very well. I think their pricing is fairly reasonable, it's a lot lower than my pricing is! Go to their website and click on the "Chat" button. You can chat with some of their engineers. I'm thinking of subbing out our rails hosting to them. Honestly, $360/month for a managed server from a company run by some of the rails authors? How can you complain about that?
Posted by bosie2006, 08-23-2006, 12:33 PM
you sure about that? it states at the top that it is self-managed... otherwise that would be a very good offer, of course. i will shoot them an email, to make sure.
Posted by mhalligan, 08-23-2006, 02:06 PM
I guess that depends on your definition of managed. My understanding is they monitor the hardware & network on it, as well as preconfigure it for rails, mongrel, etc. I think they also do patch management.
Posted by slicematt, 08-28-2006, 10:35 PM
Almost all of our customer dabble in Rails. Pop into the chatroom and we can help you get started. We also offer managed hosting. One last recommendation, consider Mongrel and Apache instead of FastCGI.

Add to Favourites Print this Article