But that's a bit of a jump to make. Learning how to install a web server or edit a server's configuration isn't always the most straight forward thing in the world, and something like Digital Ocean isn't the best solution for someone who's just starting out and wants to put a few pages online.
So really, my advice for someone wanting to know where to get hosting wouldn't be to setup a VPS, but to ask yourself how much you're willing to learn about configuring servers, and to pick a managed solution or simple shared host if you're not interested in that side of things overall.
The parent comment to mine specifically said this issue "limits my personal growth quite a bit. I really need to figure this portion out". I am not aware of any way of figuring this out other than to actually do it - at least once - and in the process of doing, perhaps also do some further reading, depending on how deep one wishes to go.
I never said that in the future you cannot choose one of the easier turn-key solutions, but you will have acquired an idea of how those things work behind the scenes.
Honestly, i had more trouble helping my friend with 'simple shared hosting' CMS to setup his webpage correctly, than with setting up nginx on ubuntu for the first time.
They finished their basic markup, now they want to put it online, and you came up with Nginx and Apache? That is called out of touch.
Step back. Of course, it is easy, of course, there are bazillions of tutorials, but these people do not know any of that.
I'm a sysadmin, but once, I had no clue about anything and people commenting like you weren't helpful at all.
Configuring a server may be relatively easy, but not having to is easier.
I know how to do those things, but even so, the thought of doing all that just to get a little side project online gives me a sense of dread. It’s not what I would call fun.
I hate to imagine how hard it is for someone who has never typed 'cd' or 'ls' in a terminal.
File and directory permissions screw people up all the time. If you set them wrong, you can create security holes, keep your site from being served, break SSH logins, break TLS, break git, etc. And online forums are full of bad advice a la "I just set 777 on the directory and all the errors went away!"
