Why do you think it isn't simple to host? If you yearn for the simple times, no one is stopping you from just spinning up a VPS with Ruby, Passenger, Nginx and your favorite database.

Of course the larger your project is, the more hassle, but that's not specific to Rails.

You should try phoenix and elixir, only been playing with them for less than a week and as a long time rails/ruby developer this is what it feels like again.

> My only wish it was simpler to host

I think it can be simple if you keep it simple :). In my book Deployment from Scratch I show people how to run Rails on a cheap VPS with a couple hundreds lines of Bash.

Just Ruby + chruby + Puma + systemd (and optional systemd socket activation).

I include a scripted demo (so you don't have to do it yourself) which demonstrates all of the this:

- Setting up a git-pust deployment for Ruby applications

- Using chruby to automate installing requested Ruby versions

- Configuring NGINX as a proxy using UNIX sockets

- Setting up systemd socket activation for graceful restarts

- Configuring NGINX to serve static assets

- Configuring NGINX to proxy WebSockets connections for Action Cable

- Automatic SSL/TLS certificates with Let's Encrypt

- Redirecting HTTP traffic and subdomains to main domain over HTTPS

- Running PostgreSQL and Redis on the same server

- Building a custom SELinux module

- Configuring firewall

- Setting up automatic weekly system update

- Setting up log rotation for NGINX and PostgreSQL logs and max limit for system log

- Doing application backups and restores

- Creating admin tasks

Although it sounds like a lot, the demo is reasonably small and clean so you can go through all the files in 2 hours.

I think people many times complicate what they don't need to complicate...

You're welcome to adapt the AWS deployment scripts I setup for Haven[1]. I tend to adapt them when deploying other personal projects like the sites I've built for my family tree or privately hosting/sharing old family home movies.

[1]: https://github.com/havenweb/haven/tree/master/deploymentscri...

(Render founder; genuinely curious) what about Render makes you not want to use it?

Python/Django developer here, but I've found Digital Ocean+Dokku to be a pretty decent cheap alternative with more flexibility than Heroku, especially for an early-stage side project where a single server is enough for your needs.

Take a look at Cloud66. Been using it for every project over the last 10 years or so... It's like Heroku except you can control a lot more and not get locked into "enterprise" pricing when you need to scale or simply don't want to expose your database to the open internet (imagine that).

Check out https://www.hatchbox.io/, it lets you easily host stuff on various hosting platforms (using your own account) with similar ease to Heroku. Which also means it's WAY cheaper. Heroku's pricing has always seemed insane to me.

I think it used to be harder to host than it is now. I think the only thing that might be hard now is sifting through all the tools for hosting and the analysis paralysis that can come with that. Heroku can get pricey at scale, but heroku and others are options that make it dead simple. Then there are a ton of options for how you might want to self-host. There are plenty of guides for getting docker setup with it, opensource heroku-like alternatives (most using docker under the hood), and plenty of resources (maybe too much).

Did you try uwsgi? I have been hosting everything with this thing for over a decade and I still love it: https://uwsgi-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Ruby.html

It’s been a long time, but I used to use convox for this back in the day, may still be worth checking out: https://docs.convox.com/example-apps/rails/

I've had good success on my side-business with Piku: https://piku.github.io It's essentially a lightweight PaaS that you can run on your own hardware (even ARM)

I have been using a software called dokku for about six years. It‘s like Heroku, but you self host. It even uses the same buildpacks. You just run the dokku installer and off you go.

If you don't mind hosting on AWS, Elastic Beanstalk is a pretty streamlined way to host Rails apps, and it doesn't cost anything more than the AWS resources you consume.

See, emteycz? Popularity is not the same thing as satisfaction. ;)

I'm using hatchbox.io on Linode!

And it's great!

Hatchbox takes the maintenance and setup out of DevOps for me!

Using Hatchbox makes it easier to treat servers like cattle and less like pets!

Agree on the hosting part. I would like an official docker compose for production that had everything tied together nicely.