Slashdot Mirror
Advanced Open Source Project Hosting?
asn0 asks: "How do large/popular Open Source/Free Software projects manage their needs for hosting, bandwidth and mirrors? What limitations are there to the size/popularity of projects a site like SourceForge can/will support? Where does a project go for hosting and bandwidth once it out-grows SourceForge, and how hard is it to get hosting, bandwidth and mirrors to support a growing open source project?"
I have a open source project myself, which I used to host on sourceforge. However, after having used Sourceforge for six months or so, I decided to go looking for hosting somewhere else. The main reason for doing this was because I always thought the Sourceforge systems are a bit "clunky" and inflexible, and I wanted total freedom in which services to provide, and how to configure them.
After a while I stumbled upon a company called John Companies. These guys provide virtual FreeBSD / Linux servers; you get root on your own system, a unique IP address, and full freedom in what to do with your system.
Now, these guys are professionals - you just know that from day one. The systems are really well run, I have had almost no problems at all (except one network outage because of a couple of busted routers at their network providers). And the support is fantastic - you can ask them about any problem you may have, and they'll usually get back to you at once. Their prices are low too, $65 a month for a freebsd system, but if you are an open source developer they'll even give you a $20 discount.
The only snag, really, is that you'll have to set everything up yourself. This was my main reason for switching from sourceforge anyway, so it wasn't a problem for me - but others may not want to go through all the work.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with John Companies in any way, except being a very, very satisfied customer.