Review the process of building this website and I hope this article could be helpful for you to save money in building your website.
I know there already have a lot of websites providing easy solutions for creating your own website but still some reasons you want to create by yourself because of saving money or easily customization solutions or even just because you are a programmer. I write down my solution I think the best for your reference.
My solution is using the free Linux operation system and opensource software WordPress to build a website and deploying in Google Cloud which I estimate will just cost no more than NZD$100 annual fee ideally fulfills all your various requirements in your website’s early stage. Google Cloud has a low/free host plan calling “f1-micro” in GCE(Google Compute Engine) available in its some zones and you can spend tiny coins in extra disk space and a static IP or snap services to improve the flexibility and reliability of your website. Let’s talk about the details of my plan:
DOMAIN
I applied my domain in Google Domains and it costs me NZD$22 a year, you are free to hide your registration info which is a charged service in GoDaddy. Another advantage is you can easily set SSL certificates in Google Cloud Platform with Google Domains.
CLOUD HOST
As I mentioned above, I chose the plan “f1-micro (1 vCPU, 0.6 GB memory)” is free and an extra 10G hard disk and a static IP which only costs you just a few bucks per month.
OS AND SOFTWARE
Choose Ubuntu 20.04 as the operating system because it’s free, stable, and easily maintaining, Nginx as the webserver, WordPress as the website tool.
SSL CERTIFICATE
Use Let’s Encrypt‘s free SSL solution to apply SLL certificate by installing certbot on your server. there are very detailed documents for various operating systems in the certbot’s website. the whole process is as easy as a piece of cake.
OTHERS
WordPress has a lot of free plugins for your use. Google as well, for example, you can use Google Analytics to analyze your website’s visits, use Google Firebase for your site’s authentication solutions.
In summary
The solution will probably just cost you between $20 to $40 a year, then, you have a whole virtual machine, domain with SSL certificate, and website, so I think it’s the best for all developers, please comment if you have any questions or a better solution.