School Project - Cheap web hosting

[blackscooby]

I could do with some hosting advice.

My son is doing a "School Project". Handmade card crafts for want of a better expression. It has turned into a bit of an Apprentice type of project on who can earn the most money.

Cutting a long story short, he already has a domain name that I bought years ago, but can anyone recommend a cheap and easy hosting company.
We're talking a very little amount of site traffic.
I'll stick together a Wordpress site, Woocommerce and a few items on his site.

I was looking at hosting at home on a Pi, but I won't be able to get SSL certificates etc for WooCommerce / PayPal.

I've got involved.. so it's turned a bit serious and full on now !

Thanks
BS

[Bikerjon]

Who's project is it - yours or your sons?! Is an ecommerce site expected?

Weebly, Wix or probably Carrd is where I'd be heading rather than Wordpress.

[Harpoon]

You can get $300 of free credits if you're a first time Google Cloud customer. That's enough for a small Linux VM for 10 months IIRC.

Let's Encrypt for free SSL certificates as well.

[TonyRPH]

blackscooby said:

<snip>

I was looking at hosting at home on a Pi, but I won't be able to get SSL certificates etc for WooCommerce / PayPal.

<snip>

SSL certificates are bound to the domain name and not the hardware. Anything (almost, excluding CPU limitations) that runs on Linux, will run on Pi.

A static IP is required (it can be done with a dynamic IP but updating DNS dynamically could be an issue depending on your DNS provider).

Use Letsencrypt for SSL certs and something like acme.sh to perform automatic renewals.

[blackscooby]

TonyRPH said:

blackscooby said:

<snip>

I was looking at hosting at home on a Pi, but I won't be able to get SSL certificates etc for WooCommerce / PayPal.

<snip>

SSL certificates are bound to the domain name and not the hardware. Anything (almost, excluding CPU limitations) that runs on Linux, will run on Pi.

A static IP is required (it can be done with a dynamic IP but updating DNS dynamically could be an issue depending on your DNS provider).

Use Letsencrypt for SSL certs and something like acme.sh to perform automatic renewals.

hmmmm interesting.
I'm on BT dynamic IP, but already use ddns.net for my MIL as I run a VPN server for her as she watches UK TV whilst living overseas.

So can I? forward my "me.ddns.net" to "mysonsURL.co.uk" and have an SSL certificate on the back of mysonsURL.co.uk on the Pi

If so, then that's a great solution.

Edited by blackscooby on Monday 29th November 22:51

[TonyRPH]

blackscooby said:

hmmmm interesting.
I'm on BT dynamic IP, but already use ddns.net for my MIL as I run a VPN server for her as she watches UK TV whilst living overseas.

So can I? forward my "me.ddns.net" to "mysonsURL.co.uk" and have an SSL certificate on the back of mysonsURL.co.uk on the Pi

If so, then that's a great solution.

Edited by blackscooby on Monday 29th November 22:51

You will almost certainly run into issues forwarding one domain to another (SSL domain).

I know that BT used to be able to assign static IPs a few years back, as I used to have one myself - for a small cost of course.

That might be worth looking at.

There are other options like Amazon / Google etc. for web space - and they can be cheap if traffic is low.

[BlueMR2]

Have a chat (email) with Mythic Beasts.

You can even rent a Pi from them.

[blackscooby]

In the end I went for an infinity free website that seems to be quite good.
Got one up and running using Wordpress and WooCommerce this morning.

I'm far from a web designer, but created our Mid Cheshire Motor Racing Club website using Wordpress and WooCommerce so had the basics to get me going today.

Not sure what I put today's time down to on for my actual work.. ahem.. oops.

[_Yeti]

Appreciate you've already found a solution. But I've hosted a few personal websites using Google Firebase. It's a bit more involved than others but find it great for firing up a quick website for free.