Help with getting starting Hosting a Website and Emails
Hello.
I should make my mum a simple website (onepager) which I can do either myself or in a CMS. But I have no Idea how hosting and buying a Domain works. I tried looking online a bit but there is just so much out there. Anyone can recommend a good source to educate myself in that regard? Also she is interested in getting business E-mails (3 I think) too any recommendation here would be welcomed too 🙂
Pluspoints if its specific for DACH region as I am from Austria. Dunno if that even has any influence. ^^
Ty
52 Replies
You buy domains through services like combell, these are monthly payments afaik.
For a CMS you can look for free opensource CMSs like StrapiCMS and PayloadCMS (personally haven't used payloadcms yet).
Keep in mind they have a different process for hosting then static site do.
I know there is sites like WIX for example that provide both, paying isnt the issue as its for a business. Do you have any personal experience with services like that do I have to be careful when choosing plans? Its so scary when u do stuff for others and with money of other ppl :<
you can buy the names monthy, yearly, 2 year, or even 3 years in some registars
how it works depends on which registar you use
specifically about emails ... it depends
since you only want to host a single page, sounds like it will be static (as in, very little changes)
github can be used to host that, and you can use a custom domain name, but i believe that that is for paid versions only
github can do almost everything: git, deply, host
Its mainly a infomation page so no big changes or regular changes no
so, again, for the email, maybe a gmail account as a beginning isnt a bad idea
which is free
y I also tought that is prob the cheapest solution since its just my mum and my sister + one generall that they need
and in github I could just put a folder with html and css for example and it would go life then?
sry I have like 0 Idea how that works xD
basically, yes
okey so will have a look into github then and see if that works for us ^-^
but, if you want to use github to host a private repo and use github pages, then you need a paid plan
alternatively, you can look into cloudflare pages
does github work for any domains (also existing ones) or do I have to buy them from github?
i am 90% sure you have to pay for a plan to allow that
also, to host a private repo (which you will want to make private) in github pages, you need a paid plan
you can use github actions to deploy the site after, either to github pages or cloudflare pages or wherever you decide to host
and whats the advantage to lets say WIX?
it's your code
ah in WIX I cannot use my code? o.o
wix is a site builder
you pick a theme and use it
you might be able to, but it is a lot more limited
and the code it generates isnt the greatest
ah okey
another question when I look at plans from lets say https://www.world4you.com/ they also include e-mails whats up with those?
World4You Internet Services GmbH
world4you » Hosting-Provider aus Österreich
world4you entdecken ➜ Webhosting aus Österreich seit 25 Jahren ✓ 500+ Domain-Endungen ✓ in 3 Minuten registrieren ✓ Top-Kundenservice!
that is email addresses using the domain name
basically
okey ty for your time and knowledge 🙂
the hosting company allows you to create email accounts which then are accessible through a webmail panel, like roundcube or something
or you can use thunderbird, the shitty outlook app or another email client to use those
it isnt as practical as gmail, but it has the company identity
i think it is possible to use gmail to manage the emails, but, i never tried that
Would not recommend no code solutions like squarespace and wix - they are so frustrating and no it’s not built to take code or allow customization. If you need a cms , go with Wordpress.org (not .com) on your own hosting.
But if it’s one page and you have the code just deploy your Gh repo to Netlify or Cloudflare pages or Gh pages . On Netlify you can (or could , check that it’s still the case) connect your custom domain . Same w Cloudflare pages .
For domains I like porkbun - their renewal prices are the most fair. For most domains ive found standard prices range between $12-24/year these days. But depends on your domain . Have you looked to see if the domain you want is available ?
oh, yeah, i only hear good things about porkbun
itch.io migrated to them a while ago, when some shitty registar threatened to take down the website because of dmca bullshits
I freakin' love Porkbun. They've been super great
Netlify is completely free and allows you to use a custom domain name and makes emails easy
Iirc it's free if you have less than 10,000 monthly visitors and less than 25 or 50 form submissions / emails a month
It's not completely free. Once you hit a certain useage point they charge you through the nose
Yea but I can't imagine a small website like this is going to reach the charging threshold
Most people who hit that threshold don't expect it.
Then again, I'm risk-adverse so I don't like variable charges like that. I'll stick with my US$4/mo server that works regardless of the number of users
🤷♂️ just speaking through personal experience, I have multiple websites I've hosted for myself and businesses and all of them combined have never gotten close to the threshold. It's an easy option that has emails and custom domain setup that's practically foolproof
Definitely want something else though if you ever expect that bandwidth to be hit
Can't you easily change host if netlify hits limit?
Or is it harder when custom domain is involved
Yea I don't see why not, you also don't need to add your card either
Domain names are just changing the DNS records, so yes you can easily change between hosts just depends on how the hosting website wants it set up
Kk gotcha
for up to 72 hours, things can get weird, and emails may fail validations when being sent
For their form submissions?
no, from the email client
and received emails too, may fail dmark and other checks
Oh you just mean dns propogation?
that is the cause, but no
email servers do check to make sure that the email address is allowed to send emails from that domain
to prevent email spoofing
They can't charge what they don't have
Fair. I guess I’ve just seen too many, “got charged thousands of dollars overnight!” posts
They don't have any of my info I host for free 🥲
Also they put caps or limits for those who do pay
That’s sane
Therefore unbelievable
😜
As a budget-friendly option, I typically use GitHub for hosting(static websites) with a custom domain, and handle email through forwarding with a catch-all setup😅 And if you have Github student, you get 3 domain for 1yr😆
So, if you have github student pack, you can have everything for free (1yr)😅
Even if you don't have student pack, you just have to spend for domain ($6 or something for .com on namecheap)
but to have a private repo be deployed to github pages, you need to pay for github as well
yeah, for students its free again😄
And for static sites, I don't think it really matters, you're just sharing informational content, so whether the repository is public/private doesn't make much of a difference
it's not about being static, but being private
stuff like uncompiled ts/js, react or svelte or other files
scss
those files are supposed to be private
yeah right, but still you can just host compiled output i guess
yes, you can
If the site isn't updated frequently, there's no harm in keeping the repository public with only the compiled output
makes it easier to grab the website and use soemwhere else by someone else
yeah, for that we dont really need github, right? there are website cloners available like httrack, webcopier etc.
Yeah, but it does make it easier
true, but it's a tiny bit harder than "git clone"
Has anyone recommended firebase to host yet or is it not recommendable?
firebase is a backend-as-a-service
but this is to host a website with a static page that won't change much