Research - Database Hosting Platform

[jamescd18]

Explore PostgreSQL hosting providers in an effort to understand which cloud-based fully-managed database hosting provider would be best. Also see #4. Options include: (feel free to trim the list before digging too deep)

• Digital Ocean
• Azure PostgreSQL
• AWS RDS for PostgreSQL
• Google
• ScaleGrid
• Heroku PostgreSQL
• ElephantSQL

Pricing is likely the most important axis of comparison. From rough napkin math, we anticipate having <1GB of data and a relatively small CPU load, but this could change. The 1-3 lowest price tiers are likely of most interest, and it would be beneficial to compare and see how features / performance scales with price for each provider. If prompted, bias towards hosting on the east coast, but do consider the price differences.

[eshwaribhide]

Provider	Price	Storage	vCPU
Digital Ocean	$15/mo	10 GB	1
Azure PostgreSQL	$25.32/mo	5 GB	1
Azure PostgreSQL	$25.82/mo	10 GB	1
AWS RDS for PostgreSQL	$13.71/mo	5 GB	2*
AWS RDS for PostgreSQL	$106/yr + $0.57/mo	5 GB	2*
AWS RDS for PostgreSQL	$14.29/mo	10 GB	2*
AWS RDS for PostgreSQL	$106/yr + $1.15/mo	10 GB	2*
Google	$51.01/mo	~10.7 GB	1
ScaleGrid	$90/mo	60 GB	1
ElephantSQL	$10/mo	1 GB	Doesn't say...so I assume 1
ElephantSQL	$19/mo	2 GB	Doesn't say...so I assume 1
ElephantSQL	$49/mo	50 GB**	Doesn't say...I assume maybe 8 <= x <= 16

*I don't see an option for one with 1 vcpu.
** That's the next available tier...you literally jump from 2 GB to 50 GB.

Everything except AWS doesn't appear to have upfront pricing.

All the values in storage are the minimum amounts the providers give; I know we expect to only need 1 GB of storage, maybe 2 GB max. So 5 GB is more than enough; I just included comparisons for 10 GB for Azure and AWS for reference to Digital Ocean.

Let's forget about Google...that is a ridiculously expensive price and also they don't even host on the East Coast (closest thing is Iowa). We can forget about ScaleGrid, too, at $90 a month. That's the lowest they offer; their "smallest tier" is called "Medium".
EDIT: Maybe not forget about ScaleGrid just yet

I've left out Heroku because I think you need to deploy your app on there too.

[jamescd18]

Connecting to Heroku Postgres Databases from Outside of Heroku

The important distinction about ScaleGrid is that it allows you to choose the underlying cloud service. You can choose AWS, Azure, GCP, or others with ScaleGrid.

[eshwaribhide]

For now, let's say that our contenders are Digital Ocean, Azure, AWS, and ElephantSQL.

I'm going to say that Azure seems a bit pricier, so let's forget about it for now. Same with DigitalOcean, whose minimum also happens to be 10 GB, which is more than we need (and at $15/mo for 10 GB, it's more than AWS RDS at $14.29/mo for 10 GB). So we can decide between AWS and ElephantSQL. I think AWS is just a more reliable provider and more well-known, and in the case that maybe we really do end up needing 5 GB, for example, we have it at a pretty decent price vs having to spring up to ElephantSQL's 50 GB tier. AWS also kind of lets you choose your increments; so it doesn't have to be 5 GB, 10 GB per se. Also ElephantSQL hosts PostgreSQL on Amazon EC2.

In terms of pricing, yeah maybe 2 GB is enough for when we need more storage, but then we're paying $19/month ($228/year) for ElephantSQL vs $13.71/mo for 5 GB from AWS. And if you pay upfront with the additional monthly storage pricing cost of $0.57 a month, that's $112.84 a year.

What do you think?

[eshwaribhide]

Connecting to Heroku Postgres Databases from Outside of Heroku

The important distinction about ScaleGrid is that it allows you to choose the underlying cloud service. You can choose AWS, Azure, GCP, or others with ScaleGrid.

Is it really worth $90 a month though? I think AWS is fine right, so we could just go with them?

[jamescd18]

Looks great! I love the fantastic notes and wonderful analysis. Let's go ahead and mark this as AWS RDS and see where it takes us.