A Docker analogy

Wappler General
#33

It is a great piece of software. On that we agree.

Implying that docker hosting is expensive and specifically with Digital Ocean people would need to pay a premium of 15$ just because of docker usage could put off people.

Among other features Docker was created to skip as many managed services as possible.

I just think it is still a new tech and people are just reluctant on trying it out.

And to make clear my position on all this deployment discussion.

FTP/SFTP is an ancient technology that shouldn’t be recommended anymore to deploy to a production environment. It is inefficient, prone to errors, inconsistent and insecure specially for FTP.

I see that Wappler is looking at the future while trying to keep compatibility with legacy technologies and that is appreciated. But they are on the right track when pushing Docker and Version Control deployments although they need to improve remote targets for GIT.

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#34

From my perspective, I do not think most users will be ready to dive into Docker. If understanding the basic aspects of Wappler is difficult, then Docker will be a nightmare. For example, yesterday, I spent all day playing with Docker and accomplished nothing.

Wappler has shown that Docker can provide a web service and database service easily with no issues. However, for myself there are two missing components, domain management and email services (both accounts and forwarding).

When looking at those two components, I turned to the trusted administrative options (CPanel or Plesk). CPanel for Docker has not been updated in 3 years so I did not trust it to be a viable solution. Plesk for Docker was updated 13 days ago, so I turned to it. Creating a new container to hold Plesk was easy but that it where the fun stopped. The Plesk for Docker only installed 13 components. Even after doing the first update of 43 components and the a second update of 50+ components, only 13 were showing. After diving into multiple support threads, I DID have to ssh into the docker container to run the plesk installer all over again, just to run into more errors. This is not to mention that Plesk has a monthly fee to use as well.

So while Docker is quick to deploy and allow a web service and database too easily be created, from my perspective, that is where the ease of use ends.

I understand that Digital Ocean offers $10 per month hosting for Docker, which equates to $120 a year. I pay $7.88 a month or $93.88 a year with NameCheap for my hosting (50% off for the first year, making it $3.88 or $45.88). With that, I get the peace of mind of easily being able to add new domains or subdomains to my hosting, unlimited email accounts and email forwarding, and CPanel which allows for ease of management.

While Docker does make deploying locally a breeze (much easier than XAMP or MAMP Pro), it does have its limitations as well, specifically the lack of https which effects some of my development. I still find myself deploying locally with Docker to test things and redeploying to MAMP Pro when https is required.

I am not against using Docker in a production environment, providing that it can provide what I currently need for web hosting. However, baring that, I will be sticking to a traditional web host provider.

2 Likes
#35

You should add this to the request for comments thread about docker(part 1 is local).

The team could include a checkbox in the target to add SSL support locally.

They could set the docker compose to run apache ssl module, create the keys with openssl and set up your local hosts file.

#36

Can I throw another analogy into this thread?

PDFs. They can be opened on just about any device, printed to any printer, and will always look exactly as they should. So it doesn’t matter if you’re using Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. or Word, OpenOffice, Pages, InDesign, etc. The PDF you create will be perfect on any other system.

One quick question, though. If I’m working on 5 projects using Docker, will my system have 5 complete web servers and databases running on it? Will this take up lots of storage space? I currently use (and have done for 20+ years) MAMP because it’s one server and one database and I just create a new virtual host for each project.

1 Like
#37

Each container uses the same read image so if you have 5 containers using apache you will only store 1 apache image. However each container will use it’s own write space to store files related to that specific container i.e. each website

And yes PDF is another good analogy. Actually the P is for Portable.

1 Like
#38

Now that I have a bit more time I can reply correctly to your full post.

From my perspective I don’t think most people are ready to be brain surgeons. Although it is probably better to ask a brain surgeon what he thinks about my perspective :wink:

If technically you are encountering roadblocks
I would then recommend using a Managed VPS. i.e. Cloudways or similar.

5$/month is the cheapest package, not 10.

Those are probably the least important features when selecting a hosting provider. You do realize that all those features are software related? Ergo you can get all those in any VPS, Dedicated server or even with a Raspberry Pi connected at home to your router.

CPU, RAM and storage space/type my friend.

Namecheap is good to host very small websites with low traffic. For data driven web apps it’s better to stay away from classic shared hosting providers.

Docker doesn’t have any limitations. You can add a root SSL certificate on your laptop and change the configuration of your Apache container so it uses SSL.

You are referring to Wappler’s integration of Docker. Yes it doesn’t handle local SSL certificates but that is a thing that they can add if there is a need.

But Docker as such doesn’t have limitations. Or at least not those limitations you could imagine.

If you guys want real cheap hosting buy a raspberry pi and plug it in your routers. You will get more CPU and RAM than from namecheap/goddady/etc.

Heck I might even record a video tutorial on how to host your website on a RPi plugged into your routers using docker to deploy if you all stop saying that Docker hosting is expensive. BTW there is no such thing as docker hosting. It is hosting providers that support docker.

2 Likes
#39

For some it is likely better odds of becoming a brain surgeon than grasping Docker. Docker and GIT, while being very important features of Wappler are likely for a very small niche market.

1 Like
#40

:joy:

#41

For the record, I include myself in the group that has just as much chance to become a brain surgeon. :wink:

1 Like
#42

I need my title changed to Docker Ambassador.

7 Likes
#43

cPanel for Docker?
[https://features.cpanel.net/topic/dockerio-support](http://from CPanel topic Application Container Support)

#44

@Howard, how does that article help? All it talks about is how CPanel is NOT available for docker.

#45

Interesting article about Docker security risks, I just found another very detailed article about Docker security best practices: https://www.stackrox.com/post/2019/09/docker-security-101/.

1 Like
#46

@JonL, it might be better to do a complete comparison, rather than continuous promote Docker’s ease of use and $5 monthly plan. I chose the $10 plan because that is the plan that most closely resembles the hosting plan that I currently have.

I appreciate you suggesting Managed VPS, such as Cloudways, but again, I would be paying more for less. After all, it comes down to cost and in this world, cost overrides all concerns, especially for small websites. After all, none of us are going to get the type of traffic that Facebook gets, so let’s keep it real.

#47

I think it helps to squash any hopes of cPanel/WHM integration with Docker.

I checked just to see if they really had an old implementation.

I have a RHEL cPanel/WHM bare metal server. Theoretically I can do what I want with it but setting up a Docker machine is beyond me.

#48

@Howard makes sense, I thought you were posting it as a solution. When I was doing my research, I looked at https://hub.docker.com/r/akel/cpanel-docker

#49

Sounds interesting. What should I compare?

#50

Scott,

It all depends on the needs of the websites you build.

If you are building small websites and have very light load and traffic, small databases and also need domain and email handling - you should definitely use fantastic solutions like Plesk and cPanel to handle them all in.

However if your web sites are getting more heavy load and need more a server on their own and don’t want to be bothered by sharing the same web server and database, then you should consider docker cloud hosting.

Also note that you can just use both solutions - start small with shared hosting and keep there the regular stuff like domains and email but when the website/app/api need to scale just get it out and put it on its own server with docker. Just redirect the hostname in the dns to its ip and you are done.

You can also do combination - on the same docker server you can run indeed a few services and websites, it doesn’t have to be just one. But no more than a few otherwise you will have the same slowdown as too many sites on a shared hosting.

So docker is not a replacement of regular hosting - it is just a natural addition when you are scaling up.

Docker gives you much more control by enforcing separation of concerns that pays off when scaling up and moving more to Microservices architecture and its fit to Docker

So it is all natural evolution. And again if you have just small web sites running perfectly on shared webhosting - just stick with it! Docker will be definately an overkill there. I’m sure @JonL will agree to that

There is also another solution to have on the same host Plesk, as you probably have it now, but also install Docker in Plesk

Just as you can have Git in Plesk

Both great options to start with better publishing of your sites than just FTP. and giving you more version control and easy rollback posibilities.

I’m sure there are similar solutions to cPanel as well.

PS. Having docker for Local Development is a different story and a must to replace those WAMP/XAMP solutions.

3 Likes
Hosting Environments
#51

I came from bubble testing Wappler, I looked for a few days and couldn’t be bothered with all the server stuff.
2 months later I noticed talk about docker, I had no idea what it was or what it did but I’m the forum I could understand that using it I could make a database somewhere on my computer and it was going to be a matter of clicking a few buttons.
Within an hour I had it up and running.
If it had of taken half an hour more Wappler would have gone back into the top hard basket.

The only thing I wish is that I didn’t have to run an application to create entities and tables
It would be amazing to do that from within Wappler

4 Likes
#52

Hi Chad, this is also coming to Wappler soon :slight_smile:

4 Likes