Cloud Host Provider

Free Test Run

The referral sign up links will give you ample credits to try xplex at no cost to you:

DigitalOcean

Sign up to DigitalOcean 🔗

Use the link to get $200 starting credit on DigitalOcean for 2 months.

Linode

Sign up to Linode 🔗

Linode sign up link (no referral yet—you have to pay out of pocket).

Vultr

Sign up to Vultr 🔗

Use the link to get $10 starting credit on Vultr for 1 months.

We have no affiliation with the cloud providers, but should you choose to continue their services after the credits expire and spend a small amount, we’ll receive an one-time cloud credit.

There’s no obligation, but your support would make a meaningful contribution to the project.

Compare the Cloud Providers

Here’s a list of some popular cloud providers’ cheapest compute unit offerings, either of which should be enough to run xplex (however, the author has only extensively used DigitalOcean):

Cloud Host	Compute	Bandwidth	Cost/month
DigitalOcean	1core, 0.5GB	500GB	$4
Linode	1core, 1.0GB	1000GB	$5
Vultr	1core, 0.5GB	500GB	$2.5

If this is your first time setting up a cloud server, then start with Vultr

• You can do a lot of trial & error with the $10 credit for a month.
• You can run upto 4 parallel $2.5 instances; to try different configurations.
• And if you mess up, you can just destroy the instance & start over.
  • Instances are charged for the duration they’re running.
  • You’re not billed twice for destroying and recreating instances.

If you’re already familiar with cloud servers, then start with DigitalOcean

• They have a lot of (and arguably, the best) documentation & community support.
• You can get $200 credit for 2 months, which is a lot of time to get comfortable.

Feel free to switch host at any time, if you’re not having a good experience

• Don’t be confused trying to find a perfect match.
• You can always switch to a different provider later.
• The best part of using Docker is that—apart from the IP addresses of the hosts—the end result should be predictably the exact same in all cases.

Create a new instance with Docker

For the smoothest experience, create instances with Docker preinstalled & choose the closest data center location to you.

As mentioned before, you may choose the smallest offered instance size to run xplex .

DigitalOcean

🚀 Start with DigitalOcean’s 1-click deployment image with Docker preinstalled

📑 Use DigitalOcean’s getting started guide for reference

Linode

🚀 Start with Linode’s 1-click deployment image with Docker preinstalled

📑 Use Linode’s getting started guide for reference

Vultr

🚀 Start with Vultr’s 1-click deployment image with Docker preinstalled

📑 Use Vultr’s getting started guide for reference

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Remote login to the host over SSH

Cloud providers have official docs on the best way to connet to their instances:

DigitalOcean

📡 Remote access DigitalOcean droplets over SSH

Linode

📡 Remote access Linode instances over SSH

Vultr

📡 Remote access Vultr VPS over SSH

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But if you’re familiar with remote logins, then apart from the cloud specific terminologies & UX differences, the process is pretty much the same everywhere.

If you’re new to cloud servers, then remote login is a way to get access—over terminal—to the cloud server you just created. For the login terminal, you hava a couple of choices:

• The cloud provider’s built-in web-based terminal on their dashboard
• The latest Windows Terminal now supports SSH—PuTTY is not needed
• And of course, on macOS or Linux, you can use the built-in terminal to login