Linode Managed Databases

[groggo]

I'd really like access to a tiny, almost free, sql database for personal projects.

The cheapest option here is $15 a month, and similar prices for other cloud managed dbs.

Heroku was nice and I guess is still a good option, but hard to make a usable site on their free tier because of start up time.

Then there's the interesting new option from Cloudflare, D1.

Currently I just run my personal project on AWS lambda + dynamodb. It's free, but using dynamodb for relational data is a little awkward.

[joshstrange]

Check out PlanetScale [0] (if you use MySQL). Their hobby tier is free and very generous. If you get to the point of needing more, $30/mo isn't bad for what you get. It's way better than Aurora Serverless V1 or V2 which I was super excited for but turned out to not be worth it all. It failed scaling so much that I had to crank it up before an event or it would never find a good "migration point" or whatever they called it. Aurora Serverless' marketing is straight lies and their pricing is opposite of what I think of when I hear "serverless", $45/mo per DB if you want a single instance in V1 or 0.5 of one in V2. At least V1 allowed you to scale to 0, they removed that in V2.

[0] https://planetscale.com/

[mekster]

You can spin up a $5/mo instance on any of the low cost cloud and install MySQL or whatever.

Why go the more pricey/complicated route?

[gen220]

Have you looked into fly.io? They have a very generous free tier for hobby level projects.

https://fly.io/docs/about/pricing/

[password4321]

https://supabase.com/pricing

2 free 500MB PostgreSQL db's, paused after a week of inactivity

[DenseComet]

Cockroachdb serverless is a pretty nice option too. Super easy to spin up an instance and get started since it's mostly postgres compatible.

Planetscale has a similar offering with mysql compatibility but I've not tried it.

[barnabask]

I started this side project originally to answer that same question: https://www.dbaasreview.com/

Someone else mentioned Fly.io, have a look at Render too.

[warmwaffles]

If you truly want small and quick, use SQLite as a proof of concept.

[heelix]

The more I've worked with sqlite, the more I've been impressed. Spins up as a file that can be put in source control. Supports SQL - all the basic stuff one might try to pull off with a small MySQL instance. The main gotcha is you get a single, local node. For most personal workloads, it covers the basics really well.

[martin_a]

Take this: https://www.hetzner.com/webhosting

1,90 €/month with a TLD included. Won't get much cheaper for a "carefree" solution.

[sharno]

- Supabase

- Fly.io

- railway.app

- render.com

- Oracle Cloud free tier

These are the services that I know of that you can get some kind of relation DB to run on for free

[ajbourg]

I have a similar desire, I'm considering trying out AWS' RDS Aurora Serverless v2. (ugh, that's a mouthful) Full Postgres/MySQL but extremely quick scale up and down so as long as you have small use, it shouldn't cost a ton.

I'm also super interested in Cloudflare D1, looking to get my hands on it and try it out.

[sea6ear]

Probably not super popular, but last I checked (a couple months ago), Oracle Cloud will give you up to 2 free Oracle Autonomous (managed) SQL databases and I think if you work the free storage / virtual CPUs right, up to 4 virtual servers that you can put other unmanaged dbs on with their free tier.

[jefurii]

Linode's shared-CPU VPS is $5/mo. You can easily run SQLite3 or MariaDB something else in there.

[herpderperator]

Why not just host it on a Raspberry Pi? May as well host the entire project on it. If your Internet provider doesn't let external clients directly access your connection, tunnel it through the cheapest VPS you can find. Or just host the whole thing on said cheap VPS.

[rmbyrro]

> using dynamodb for relational data is a little awkward

It was not built to serve relational needs. You can bend it that way, though. Of course it will look like something that has been bent.

[saimiam]

Lots of answers below but no one has yet asked what you want the db to do? Know nowing your specific needs will make it easier to give meaningful recommendations.

[FractalHQ]

Supabase free tier is hard to beat. Worth checking out!

[testmasterflex]

https://server.pro smallest VPS plan costs $5 and has one click installer for MySQL.

[dinvlad]

Same here - and particularly one that could serve multiple hobby projects, while using both dev and prod envs (so minimal cost could already be 2-3x).

[dfragnito]

Have you looked at planetscale.

[WalterGR]

Linode doesn't seem to come up much. The only submission in the past year that's gotten more than a couple comments is:

Akamai to Acquire Linode (https://www.akamai.com/newsroom/press-release/akamai-to-acqu...)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30352772

986 points | nycdatasci | 3 months ago | 326 comments

[mattbillenstein]

I like them, they're my solidly "other cloud" option - running my personal VPS's, dev workloads at some companies, prod at others, etc.

[mekster]

Used Linode for years on several instances without a problem, very good support and reliable but trying to move out for a very small problem that their server backups can't handle any non default filesystems, as in, if I use zfs, their instance backup won't take backup of those because they do backup on a filesystem level and not on block device level and a fact that Vultr supports HDD block storage which seems to be a unique option among others to lower the cost of local disk access significantly.

[mikece]

Seems that Digital Ocean comes up quite a bit on HN; Linode does from time to time... who else is in this market segment?

[GauntletWizard]

Everytime I see it posted, I am linked to vultr[1] and Upcloud[2]. Hetzner[3] and OVHCloud[4] are slightly different market segments, but comparable. Worth noting is Amazon Lightsail[5], which is ec2-but-different.

[1] https://www.vultr.com/ [2] https://upcloud.com/ [3] https://www.hetzner.com/cloud [4] https://us.ovhcloud.com/vps/ [5] https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/

[nwilkens]

https://mnx.io -- We recently acquired Joyent Triton DataCenter[0,1,2] and commercial business, and are expanding our datacenter footprint this year.

Triton is open source[3], so you can run it in your own facility, at home, and our Public Cloud with the same experience.

[0]: https://www.tritondatacenter.com

[1]: https://www.joyent.com/blog/a-new-chapter-begins-for-triton-...

[2]: https://www.mnxsolutions.com/triton-faq

[3]: https://github.com/TritonDataCenter

[Sebb767]

Hetzner is pretty similar in its cloud offerings, but it's also not uncommon on HN.

[pbowyer]

UpCloud (more expensive, were v fast IO when I started using them, not benchmarked for a couple of years)

Vultr (have had reliability issues; again no recent data)

[emptysongglass]

The Finnish company Aiven.io is doing really cool stuff with managed services for most things you'd want as a startup to mid-size business.

[Spiritus]

Tilaa[1]. They also recently launched a managed database service[2] (beta).

[1] https://www.tilaa.com/ [2] https://www.tilaa.com/en/blog/tilaa-cloud-database-beta-is-l...

[c16]

One I only recently heard of through HN is Contabo. 8GB Ram for 5 EUR/mo. I've not used them, but given I pay $6 to DO for 1GB to run a single Mongo instance, I may give them a go.

Credit where its due though, DO have a great UI for resource visualiation and firewall rules which is what's currently keeping me from moving.

[SadTrombone]

Scaleway, although they're EU-only atm the price is right for my use case.

[einichi]

Curious to know if any have a good presence in East Asia too

[dgb23]

Exoscale (CH).

[l5870uoo9y]

Been wondering how much uptime you get with "these" managed databases? Currently running similar service on Digital Ocean and unsure if extra database nodes are necessary (2 failover nodes increases cost significantly).

[vincent_s]

Pricing: https://www.linode.com/pricing/#databases

[jf93ap29sh]

Anyone knows how much storage each DB plan comes with?

e.g. "Linode 2GB" - I assume that means it has 2 GB of RAM, but how much storage does that entail

Can't find it on their page

[metadat]

Seems a little pricey.. are they competing with AWS Managed Postgres?

[dominicl]

Anyone having experience with contabo.com? I've got a couple of VPS there and so far pretty happy but didn't yet have any more involved interaction with the team or support to fully judge. No managed DBs but object storage as well.

[sparrish]

Our experience was nothing but bad with Contabo VPS. Poor uptime and support.

[pyprism]

I am using Contabo for the last 8 months. So far I didn't find any issues.

[ivyirwin]

Excited to check this out. I'm a long time Linode user and recently came across some projects that could leverage a managed DB. As always, I find the prices competitive – especially compared to AWS which I was starting to look at again for this component, but now I can try it out here instead.

[tiffanyh]

Has anyone tried Linode Bare Metal?

It's been in Beta for literally years now.

https://www.linode.com/products/bare-metal/

[chasd00]

i've used linode on various projects for a while (my first invoice was in 2013). no complaints.

[sph]

I was a fan of Digital Ocean when it first appeared, then it turned into a VC company trying to recreate half of AWS badly, and I slowly warmed up to Linode. I've used both professionally, and I still think while Linode has fewer fancy features you know you're dealing with a company of engineers, a sentiment I really can't feel anymore when I log on my DO dashboard.

To be fair, I'm evaluating Hetzner now, because I just want affordable and performant virtual machines, while Linode are moving their focus to managed services because they're more profitable and are a great way to lock in their customers. Linode is no longer competitive if you just need to rent VPSes.

[my69thaccount]

Not even about the numerous security incidents?

[0des]

Is there a company out there that just does managed databases? Specifically postgres?

[bizzleDawg]

Sad not to see point-in-time-restore for postgres yet, but hopefully it gets added soon.

[throwaway3221]

i love linode and i am going to switch to linode ASAP.