We're happy to announce the release of our all new Free CloudSite plan. This plan boasts a ton of new features and improvements making it bigger, better, faster and also gluten free. But why the change? Let's get into the thought process behind that, how we designed the new plan, what it has to offer and how it affects you.
For the past several weeks we have been running some data models to help us understand how customers have been using the all new GearHost. Growing at the rate of 1,000+ new customers a month we have some good data points to capture so we combined that with some metrics on how customers are using GearHost. What we found was pretty interesting. In short we realized that while a lot of developers liked the free tier to develop their applications before going live, customers wanted a lower cost solution for simple low resource sites. The free tier didn't fit the bill, so to speak, as it did not support custom domains so we grabbed some coke and potato chips and got to think'n.
We launched GearHost with a free tier originally to offer developers the ability to develop code on our platform for free before an app went live. That worked well and even now we see a lot of people take advantage of this feature. We limited free to this mentality because we though if you had an actual production app with a domain you should be paying for it. Right? Well yes and no.
While it's completely realistic for any company to charge for a service/product they offer it's all about what you're getting in return. It's the same idea of going to a restaurant and getting free chips and salsa, free bread, etc. These tiny hand outs build loyalty and something consumers enjoy, usually. While it's a bit off topic the idea applies to GearHost. We know you are coming to us to host your awesome large apps and sites. It's simple, we're the best .NET and PHP cloud host out there! But wouldn't it be great if we could allow you to host your low resource based sites for free? After all, these sites are not consuming a ton of resources. Your answer? Well that's exactly what we thought too :)
The new free tier plan contains a good amount of resources for low usage sites. It's noteworthy to point out that the free tier is in the same cloud as your Standard and Reserved CloudSite apps and includes the same quality of service for uptime, performance, features and support. We only limit the actual resource usage. Here are the details:
- Custom Domains
- Shared Web Node
- 1 Max Worker
- 256MB Application Pool
- 5% CPU Usage, 25% burst for up to 5 min allowed
- 1GB Bandwidth /mo.
- 100MB SSD Storage
In addition each GearHost account is allowed up to 100 free CloudSite applications and 100 free databases but you will have to verify your account first. Without verification the limit is set to 5 free tier applications and databases.
If you have been, great! If not, we encourage you to take it for a spin. Run a WordPress site, an MVC application you've been playing around with, a friends site, etc. And as always share the love on Twitter @gearhost.
By: Ryan Kekos