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I started with python on google app engine 3 months ago.

Then I switched to Play2! on Heroku + mongodb and it is a breeze to work with.

I am really far in my project and I want to release the website in the next couple of days. But I just saw the pricing for SSL on heroku, which is really high.

And I don't want to launch my website without SSL. SSL on heroku costs $20/month without the certificate.

I saw some alternatives in this post What cloud platform supports playframework 2.x deployments?

But I am still not too happy. I want to pay as little as possible to start my website.

So at the moment I am looking on Google App Engine again. This would mean that I have to rewrite my whole DB.

  • Does GAE restrict some features of play2?

I also saw dotcloud but their pricing page is really confusing. I don't know how far I can go with the sandbox mode, and there is a mark on SSL so I think its somehow included but there is also an SSL addon which doubles the price.

I am okay if my website will cost me more then I will get out of it for a few months, but with the ssl on heroku is just too much.

  • What would you recommend me?

Edit:

Currently I am looking at openshift which looks kinda interesting. They implemented SSL for free to all users, but I am still not sure if I can use this with my custom domain.

Edit2:

Okay it is only shared ssl. Which means I would have to get "Megashift" which costs $42/month

Edit3:

It seems that I can only deploy war files to GAE, which destroys the purpose of play2.

So I would have to choose between heroku, dotcloud and openshift. And all of them are expensive if you want to use SSL.

Community
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Maik Klein
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  • I think Pere Villega is right! But if you really want to cut the cost why not host on some cheap (virtual) server? You won't have the scalability but when you worry about $20/month I guess that won't be the issue. – mattanja Sep 03 '12 at 13:39

3 Answers3

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I doubt that GAE will work properly with Play. The blacklisting of some classes will impact your project with several limitations that you won't have in another environment, and you have the issue of deploying war files (there are plugins for that in Play 2, but still).

Look at it from another point of view:

  • if your project is a personal "for fun" project with no other aim than trying something, you probably don't need SSL. Even if you really need (or want) SSL, 20$/month is not so much for a hobby, people pay close to that in games like WoW (subscription + extras) each month.

  • if your project is serious (startup, aiming to get money) you should stop worrying about expenses like 20$. They are investments to get the cash coming. If as a business you are willing to rewrite your code to save just 20$, you are doomed to fail.

Pere Villega
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I would advice you to give openshift a try

It's free, red hat has stated that it will keep a free offering (it's not just during the beta...)

Here's a screencast:

http://playlatam.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/deploying-play-framework-2-apps-with-java-and-scala-to-openshift/

a github repo

https://github.com/opensas/play2-openshift-quickstart

and an article at red hat

https://openshift.redhat.com/community/blogs/supporting-play-framework-on-openshift-with-the-diy-application-type

opensas
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  • What is the difference between openshift and heroku? I am curious because atm I am using heroku and probably with the cloudflare SSL which would only cost me 20 bucks per month. I also know that I can get around 200 concurrent user with 1 dyno which is really amazing. What pros would I get from OpenShift? – Maik Klein Sep 06 '12 at 02:08
  • mainly openshift is free, it gives you three apps, with half GB storage each, and you get support for java, python, ruby, node, php, and on the db side mysql, postgresql, etc... in fact, with the do-it-yourself application type you can run whatever runs on a linux box (that's how I managed to use play2)... – opensas Sep 06 '12 at 04:26
  • Okay I'll give it a shot because I get 3 gears for free and each gear has 512mb ram , that is huge. But I just created my play2 app and I only have 1 gear. Do gears increase automatically , do I have to ask to get more gears, or is there a slider somewhere like heroku to increase my gears? – Maik Klein Sep 06 '12 at 11:59
  • You can create three different apps, each with one gear. I think apps do not autoscale, at leas in the free offering. You can create a new app with differente gear size using rhc app create --gear-size small|medium, and you can also use on gear for your web app and another for the database. Anyway, you should ask at openshift forum to get a more accurate answer https://openshift.redhat.com/community/forums/openshift – opensas Sep 07 '12 at 01:19
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I can recommend you Jelastic.

Besides it offers Jelastic SSL and Custom SSL as well at a reasonable price.

Some hosting Providers allow SSL for free for their customers and the price actually varies depending on the Hosting Provider you choose. So you have alternative here.

Jelastic has recently provided a tutorial on how to deploy Play 2 web framework application to the cloud. So you can freely use it as a basis.

Daria
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