Hosting Options Information

Owned by
John Paul H Nguyen
Last updated: Apr 24, 2020 by
Cook, D Azhane D
4 min read
  • Free hosting for non-profits 
    • If your client is a registered 501c3, they can apply to get a free standard hosting package from Bluehost.  It takes a while to setup but is a great cost savings for clients. (UPDATE as of Jan 2019 - This service may no longer be provided so double check before you assume Bluehost still offers free hosting.)
    • **Note: Bluehost has discontinued their nonprofit program. Free standard hosting package is no longer available** (Make this update on the “KX”).
    • DreamHost: If your client is a registered US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, DreamHost offers a free shared hosting plan. The first year of domain registration is included for free. DreamHost also offers a free SSL certificate through LetsEncrypt. Once you create an account and submit your determination letter, they can then approve the account for nonprofit status. This should not take too long after the letter has been received. This discount will remain active for the lifetime of the DreamHost account. For more information about this offer and how to sign up for it click here:https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/236316908-DreamPress-non-profit-discount (Links to an external site.)
  • Amazon Web Services offers free temp accounts that are basic for development
  • For a dev sandbox consider using Altervista.org (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. which is completely free but not robust.  This is good for basic static website and Wordpress hosting
  • Microsoft Azure
    • You can signup for free, temporary access through Microsoft Imagine program. Click here for details.  NOTE: Since this is a free edu license, it should only be used for development and not for the final production system you deliver.  Also, note that a free edu account may not be easy to convert into a paid account.  If your client has budget follow the instructions below to initially create an Azure account with a basic paid service.
    • Click here for details on how to set up a basic paid Azure service
  • An EC2 instance is a virtual server in Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for running applications on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure. 
  • Heroku - Heroku offers an easy way to deploy web applications on AWS without dealing with AWS instances.  There is also a free tier to develop on and easily scalable.
  • Hosting a Django App using Gunicorn and Nginx
    • To host a web application in a production environment, you need a static file server to serve your stylesheets, js files, and images. Though Django’s built-in development server handles these static files, it is not recommended to use the Django development server in production.
    • Here is a tutorial that will get your django app running in production in less than 20 min! https://gist.github.com/Atem18/4696071 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
  •  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.SmarterASP.NET (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (ASP.NET hosting with free trial accounts)
    • NET is better suited towards smaller systems that do not need significant processing power or a large amount of database storage. Azure Pricing is expense since it is geared toward large-scale corporate IT systems whereas SmarterASP.Net is MUCH cheaper.
    • NET also has a 60-day free trial account, that does NOT require a credit card number and includes one web application and one database.
    • Supports multiple types of databases including Microsoft SQL Server as well as MySQL.
    • Supports both custom builds as well as CMSs such as Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and more.
    • Finally, SmarterASP.NET has good reviews and free live chat support.

  • Configuring Gmail to be used by SMTP 

    • Steps 1, 2, and use configuration for Gmail SMTP Server 


Cloud Services: 

cloud.google.com (Infrastructure as a Service) 

Google Cloud Platform gives $300 free credit and a 1 year free trial period (No cost if you use free tier systems). This is potentially enough subsidization for up to two years of free cloud services. It has an intuitive, easy to understand GUI that allows for rapid deployment of services. As well as many advanced API features built-in and ready to integrate such as BigQuery for high throughput analytics, Cloud Natural Language API for nlp, DialogFlow for creating chatbots, and FireBase for mobile app development.  


Back-end Help for Existing Client Websites - If your client has a pre-existing website that you need to modify, check to see if the provider that hosts/developed the site can help you out first. Since most clients are non-technical, their sites were made by third parties. Our group was able to start an IM with the tech support of our client's back-en website creator, and what could have taken us days to figure out how to code on our own they were able to walk us through in minutes. 


CPanel File Manager Guide for GoDaddy - This guide explains how to change and execute code if your client has their website hosted on GoDaddy. While this guide shows how to make changes to the website from CPanel, we recommend changing code first on a local server such as XAMPP - CPanelNavigationGuide.docx



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