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I've made a little java application, with a very basic server. It's just a few classes and works at a pretty low level, using main, and manually opening sockets. It also uses a very simple custom protocol.

It works great on localhost, and I'm ready to deploy it to a server so I can start using the application from locations other than my LAN.

However, I can't find anywhere to host the darn thing. Ideally I'd like to find a service where I could upload an executable jar, have whatever port I want open, and then just run the executable. An ideal service would also make it easy for me to upload a new version of the jar as I improve upon the server. It needn't be free, but this application is going to have at most about 4 concurrent users, so I don't care about scalability, and wouldn't like to pay an exorbitant price for hosting. In the ballpark of $10 per month would be okay.

I've looked into services like Heroku, and a couple others, but all require you to be using Maven, or J2EE, JSP, whatever. I'm not using any of those, just good old public static void main(String[] args).

Would it be worth my while to adapt my application to fit one of those? Will that be complicated by the fact that I want to use a custom protocol?

Chase
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    So you are talking about a `VPS`? – 3kings Oct 29 '15 at 00:35
  • I suppose that would do. I honestly didn't know the name for it. – Chase Oct 29 '15 at 00:38
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    Never used it, but [these guys](http://www.bootsector.com.au/Default.aspx?gclid=COvCxLy55sgCFYSUvAodv-QI-w#customise) have an ubuntu server instance advertised for 5.50 a month. – Kraiden Oct 29 '15 at 00:45
  • you can probably use AWS Free Tier for 12 months, if your server isn't too demanding on performance. – ZhongYu Oct 29 '15 at 01:15

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Take a look at koding.com. It gives you a free version without any cc registration. Your vps will be on for 1 h and has to be turned on manually (every hour if you don't use it) in a free account. This service also has a Web UI so you can use shell from the browser. (I am not affiliated with koding.com).

Developer Marius Žilėnas
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