Setting up QGIS Server at low cost for small user community?

Question

I want to setup QGIS Server at a low cost for a small user community (mainly me).

Parameters:

1. Some data is private so something like qgis cloud not an option (not enough money for paid option).

2. Primarily only me using this for experimentation. Sometimes I would like to share with a few other interested parties who may be scattered around the world.

3. Maybe one day I come up with something really interesting/useful and would like the option to scale up server capacity quite quickly in case it generates a lot of traffic.

4. Not too worried about 100% uptime - but equally don't want something that is falling over all the time. Essentially I can cope with the odd outage if it means its cheap.

5. Needs to be cheap.... ideally free.

6. Needs to be relatively simple to implement OR with a good tutorial. I have dabbled with this sort of thing before but still get a bit confused with too much server jargon & command line stuff - keen to learn at least!

QGIS server looks ideal because most of my work is in QGIS desktop and I want something that is relatively quick and easy to publish to.

Things I am considering:

1. Trying to setup QGIS Server on existing shared hostgator server... (but looking unlikely i can get sudo access).
2. Converting an old laptop into a home server.
3. Using Amazon EC2.
4. Try to setup QGIS Server on a bitnami stack and then use their cloud (maybe free option will work here?)
5. Finding a new low cost host option (could stretch to £10-20 a month at a push as a last resort)

Has anybody else faced a similar scenario? Can you suggest solutions that might work for me?

Many thanks in advance if so....

Answer 1

I like DigitalOcean as a host, it's really cheap, like, $5 per month. Super simple web-interface for starting machines, you can add SSH keys to make it secure, it's just right for testing VMs.

I have no affiliation with DigitalOcean.

I can give you $10 referral credits. (Disclaimer, I get something out of it if you continue to use it, see here.)

Once you have a server, you could follow this guide to get it set up.

Depending on what OS you use, you need to get files on the server, you could use github to version-control your files and a workflow there to get stuff up on the server, or you can just use WinSCP or a some other SFTP client.

Finally, when you have projects in QGIS Server, you can use OpenLayers to view them, but Leaflet is easier.