While there is something to be said for actual self-hosting a server (at home or mobile), having a low-cost spot on the Internet is good for not having to worry about one's own personal connectivity at any given time, for services to work. By services, this could include:
- Web server (Caddy)
- Email server (Mox)
- File server
- VPN server
- XMPP chat server (Prosody + coturn)
- ActivityPub server (GoToSocial)
- DNS server (CoreDNS)
VPS vendors
I've used many different VPS vendors and server locations over the years. Currently it is important to me to have a VPS from a company not in the US, and a server location not in the US. I'd also like a low cost option. For this, currently I use Hetzner Cloud for this.
The process is straightforward: pick a server at a location, then spin up a Linux build of choice (Debian Stable), and start configuring/securing it starting at root.
Prices have gone up recently for Hetzner (and OVH, likely others) due to the dramatic increase in cost of server RAM and SSD, due to the AI industry completely overwhelming global production capacity.