Why Telegram rather than an app or a website

• The client installs nothing and registers nowhere: the bot opens from the link in your Instagram profile or a QR code at the front desk.
• Reminders arrive in the same chat where the booking was made, and people read them, unlike email.
• A bot is built several times faster than a mobile app and needs no App Store review.
• For complex screens such as a monthly calendar, Mini Apps work inside Telegram: a full web interface without leaving the chat.

A booking flow that works

1. Choose a service. A list with prices and durations. The bot needs the duration to calculate free slots correctly.
2. Choose a specialist or "anyone available". For clinics, also a branch.
3. Date and time. The bot shows only genuinely free slots, taking into account the specialist's schedule, breaks and existing bookings.
4. Contact. Name and phone come from the Telegram profile; the client only confirms.
5. Confirmation. The bot sends a summary to the client and a notification to the receptionist or the specialist.
6. Reminders. A day and two hours before, with "Confirm" and "Reschedule" buttons.
7. After the visit. A review request and, if you like, a bonus for the next visit.

What the owner needs

For a single salon that replaces a CRM. For a chain of branches, or when you need roles, reports and a till, look at an admin panel or CRM with the bot as a booking channel.

How long it takes

A booking bot with specialists' schedules, reminders and receptionist notifications is from 2 weeks of work. Prepayment, Google Calendar and broadcasts add a few days each. The tiers and what drives the price are in How much does a Telegram bot cost.

Where to start

1. Write down the services with durations and prices, the specialists' schedules and the rules: how late a client can cancel, whether a deposit is required.
2. Decide where bookings should go: only into the bot, into Google Calendar or into the CRM you already use.
3. Send it to us. We will propose a flow, show a test bot and agree the copy so the bot speaks your salon's language.

What to prepare before the conversation

• The goal of the site in one sentence. Get leads, sell, show a portfolio, explain a service. The structure follows from it.
• 3-5 websites you like, and what exactly you like about them: style, structure, copy.
• A list of pages, at least roughly: home, services, about, contact, blog.
• Materials: logo, photos, texts or at least bullet points. Missing materials are the most common cause of delays.
• Timeline and budget, at least a ballpark. It helps propose a realistic format instead of the most expensive one.

12 questions to ask a developer

1. Who will own the domain, the hosting and the code? The right answer: you. The domain and hosting are registered to your account and the developer gets access. Otherwise a year later you may lose the site together with the contractor.
2. What happens when the site is opened on a phone? Most visitors come from mobile. The site must be responsive from 320 pixels, not "we'll adjust it later".
3. How fast will it be? Ask for a target in PageSpeed Insights and for previous work shown in it. We bring sites to 90-100; a slow site loses both visitors and Google rankings.
4. What SEO comes out of the box? The minimum: unique page titles and descriptions, correct tags, a sitemap, speed, structured data. Promotion is separate work, but the technical base must be there from day one. More on the SEO and optimisation page.
5. Where do the leads go? Email, Telegram, a CRM? Is there spam protection? A form that only emails an inbox nobody checks is the same as no form.
6. How will I see that the site works? Analytics: how many people visit, where from, what they click, where they abandon the form. We put our own analytics on every site, with no Google Analytics and no third-party cookie banners; see the demo.
7. Can I change texts and prices myself? If yes, you need an admin panel or a CMS. If changes happen once a year, asking the developer is cheaper. The point is to decide before the start.
8. What will the site be built with? The technology should fit the task: a landing page needs no heavy framework, and a shop with inventory should not be built on a site builder. Our approach is described under Web development.
9. What is included in the price and what is not? Design, copy, photos, content entry, hosting, domain, SSL, support. The usual surprise is content entry: the pages exist but nobody fills them.
10. What are the stages and what will I see at each one? Brief, prototype, design, development, testing, launch. You should see the result on a staging domain before paying for a stage, not "everything at the end".
11. What about security and backups? HTTPS, updates, backups, bot protection on the form. Ask who is responsible for that after launch.
12. What happens after launch? A bug-fix warranty, support terms, the hourly rate for changes. Get it in writing.

What a normal process looks like

A landing page or a business-card site takes from 3 days, an online store or a web app from 2 weeks. All stages, formats and answers about payment are on the How we work page.

In short

Domain and hosting in your name, responsiveness and speed in the requirements, leads to Telegram, analytics from day one, support terms in writing. With these five points covered, the site will not become a problem a year later. Describe your task and we will send an estimate broken down by stage.

What makes up the price

1. Scenarios. How many different dialogues the bot has to handle: booking, cancelling, reminders, questions for a manager. Every scenario is logic, copy and error handling (the client typed the date in words, changed their mind, pressed the wrong button).
2. Integrations. Payments, Google Calendar, a CRM, Google Sheets, a delivery service, your website. Each one is a separate API, authorisation and handling of failures on the other side.
3. Admin panel. Who will change prices, schedules and texts? If that is you, the bot needs an admin panel or at least admin commands.
4. Data. Whether clients, order history and statistics need to be stored. Almost always yes, which means a database and backups.
5. Server and launch. The bot runs 24/7 on a server that has to be set up, secured and monitored.
6. Support. Telegram updates its API, new scenarios appear, third-party services break.

Three typical tiers

Times are working days from an agreed specification. We price by scope, so after a short brief we send an estimate broken down by stage with no hidden fees. The formats are described on the How we work page.

What it costs after launch

• Server. A typical bot needs a VPS at 4-10 dollars a month. One server holds the bot, the database and the admin panel. How to choose one is in our hosting guide.
• Telegram Bot API is free, with no limit on the number of users.
• Payments. The payment provider takes a commission on every payment; the bot itself is not affected.
• AI. If the bot answers through a language model you pay for tokens: for a support bot that is usually a few dollars a month.
• Support. Small changes, updates, monitoring. We offer maintenance separately so you pay only when you need it.

How to save without losing quality

1. Start with one scenario. Booking, a request form or a catalogue. Add the rest once you see how clients use the bot.
2. Give examples. Show a bot you like and describe how yours should differ. It halves the briefing stage.
3. Prepare the copy and the prices. Schedule, list of services, answers to common questions. The developer should not have to invent them for you.
4. Register the bot and the server in your name. That way you do not depend on the contractor. We always hand over the code and access.
5. Do not pay for an admin panel "just in case". If settings change twice a year, admin commands inside the bot are enough.

An example from practice

For a skate marketplace channel we built a bot where sellers create listings with several photos, the admin reviews them in a moderation queue and the bot publishes the posts to the channel with hashtags and running numbers. More than 495 listings have gone through it. That is the second tier from the table: dialogues, a moderation queue, publishing to a channel, statistics and broadcasts.

What to write in a request to get an exact price

Five sentences are enough: who your clients are, what they should do in the bot, where the data goes, whether payments are needed, who will administer it. With that description we quote within a day. More about what our bots can do is on the Telegram bot development page.

Spaceship is a domain registrar and web services platform that the team behind Namecheap, one of the world's largest registrars, launched in 2023 as a separate brand. Spaceship is ICANN-accredited, so it registers domains directly rather than through a reseller, and in autumn 2026 the company announced it already manages more than 10 million domains.

The core idea is simple: a domain should cost what the price tag says and should not double at renewal. On top of that comes a modern control panel, Unbox, where domains, DNS, email and hosting live in one place. We register domains for client websites on Spaceship, so this review comes from practice.

Why buy a domain separately from hosting

A domain is your site's address (example.com); hosting is the server where the site lives. Hosting providers often throw in a free domain for the first year, then renew it at full price, and moving the domain elsewhere can be awkward. We recommend keeping the domain with a dedicated registrar:

• Independence from hosting. Moved to another server? Change one DNS record and the site keeps working. The domain stays where it is.
• Transparent pricing. A registrar shows you what renewal costs, with no "free" domain that turns expensive later.
• Security. The domain is registered in your name, the account sits behind two-factor authentication, and no contractor can "lose" it.

Domain prices

As of autumn 2026, according to registrar price trackers (Spaceship shows prices in your currency, so they may differ slightly):

The column we check first with any registrar is "renewal". At Spaceship, for .com, .net and .org it is almost the same as the registration price, so there is no unpleasant invoice for twice as much a year later. Promo extensions like .io are cheap only in the first year and renew at full price, which is worth calculating in advance. Transferring a .com in from another registrar costs about the same as a renewal (around $10) and adds a year to the domain.

Spaceship regularly runs first-year .com promo codes that bring the price down to $3-5, usually one domain per account.

What is included

• Free WHOIS privacy, forever. Your name, address and phone number stay out of the public domain database. Many registrars charge extra for this.
• DNS with DNSSEC. Full DNS hosting: A, AAAA, CNAME, MX and TXT records. DNSSEC is on by default on Spaceship's nameservers.
• Forwarding and parking. A redirect from the domain to another address is set up in the panel without any hosting.
• Two-factor authentication and a transfer lock against domain hijacking.
• API and Terraform. DNS records can be managed from code, handy for automatic SSL issuance and dynamic DNS.
• Spacemail email. Email on your own domain from under $1 per mailbox per month, with a 30-day free trial.
• Hosting and SSL. There is shared hosting and WordPress hosting, but we usually buy hosting separately.

Pros

• Low price and honest renewals. A .com for about $9 that renews for about $10: one of the lowest price tags among the big registrars.
• WHOIS privacy included. No extra charge for hiding your details.
• A modern panel. Unbox is faster and simpler than the dashboards of the "old" registrars: domain, DNS and email in one place.
• A solid company behind it. Spaceship was built by Namecheap, in business since 2000, and is ICANN-accredited.
• An API for developers. DNS can be automated instead of clicked through by hand.
• Email for pennies. Spacemail costs several times less than Google Workspace when all you need is email on your domain.

Cons worth knowing

• It is young. Spaceship has been around since 2023 and some features are still being finished. If you want a registrar with 20 years of history, that is Namecheap or GoDaddy.
• The API does not cover everything. DNS management works well, but registration and transfers via the API are still limited. Check the docs before managing domains in bulk.
• Account verification. New accounts are sometimes asked to verify their identity, especially when paying through a VPN or from an unusual country. Sign up from your normal connection and use real details.
• Promo extensions renew at full price. .io, .ai and similar domains are cheap only in the first year.
• Support is chat-based. There is a support chat but no phone line, and tricky questions may not be resolved instantly.
• Not every extension. Some country-code domains are not available, so search for the extension you need before creating an account.

Who Spaceship is for

How to buy a domain and connect it to your website

1. Go to Spaceship, type the name you want into the search and look at the renewal price, not just the registration price.
2. Create an account with real details and turn on two-factor authentication right away.
3. Pay for the domain. WHOIS privacy switches on by itself; check that auto-renewal is on too, so you do not lose the domain a year later.
4. Connect the domain to your hosting in one of two ways: - Nameservers. If your host provides its own nameservers (Hostinger does, for example), change the nameservers in the domain's settings on Spaceship to the ones your host gives you. All DNS records are then edited in the hosting panel. - A record. If you have a VPS or a server with a fixed IP address, keep DNS on Spaceship and create an A record for @ and www pointing at the server's IP. That is how we do it for sites on DigitalOcean.
5. Wait for DNS to update (from a few minutes to an hour), issue an SSL certificate on the host and check that the site opens over https.

For email, add the MX records from Spacemail or another email service in the same DNS panel where you manage the domain.

Our verdict

Spaceship is the simplest answer to "where do I buy a domain for my website": a transparent price with the same renewal, free WHOIS privacy, a clear panel and DNS you can happily hand to a developer. For a .com, .net or .org behind a business website, this is what we use. The only things to watch are promo extensions like .io, and for some country-code domains a local registrar may be the better option.

Webshare is a US proxy provider founded in Silicon Valley in the late 2010s. Since 2022 it has been owned by Oxylabs, one of the largest proxy providers in Europe, but it still runs as a separate service. Everything is self-service: sign up, choose how many proxies you need and get a list of addresses within a minute, with no sales calls or contracts.

People choose Webshare for its low prices and free plan. We use it in price and catalog scrapers, so this review comes from hands-on experience.

Why a scraper needs proxies

When a scraper sends hundreds or thousands of requests from a single IP address, the site notices: it shows a CAPTCHA, slows down its responses or simply blocks the address. Proxies spread the requests across many IPs, so to the site they look like ordinary visitors. Proxies also let you see a site the way a visitor from another country does: prices, stock and search results for a specific region.

Proxy types at Webshare

• Datacenter (Proxy Server). IP addresses of servers in data centers. The cheapest and fastest, but large sites easily recognize them as server addresses. They come as shared, used by several customers at once, and dedicated, reserved for you alone.
• Static residential (ISP). Addresses owned by internet service providers but running on fast servers. The IP never changes, and to a site it looks like a home connection. A good fit when you need a stable address for a long time.
• Rotating residential. Addresses of real home connections from a pool of tens of millions of IPs in almost 200 countries. The address changes automatically, so your requests come from different IPs. They get past bot protection best, but you pay per gigabyte of traffic.

All proxies work over HTTP and SOCKS5, and you can authenticate with a username and password or by your server's IP address.

Plans and pricing

As of October 2026:

You build your plan in a configurator: choose the number of proxies, countries, traffic and concurrent connections separately, and the price updates. Paying yearly is noticeably cheaper, while dedicated proxies cost several times more than shared ones.

Pros

• A free plan with no card required. 10 proxies with no time limit: you can check whether the site you need accepts these addresses before you pay.
• Low prices. A hundred datacenter proxies cost as much as a coffee, and the price per address drops with volume.
• Quick start. Your proxy list is ready right after sign-up; you can download it as a file or fetch it via the API.
• Flexible plans. You pay only for what you need: number of addresses, countries, traffic.
• A reliable owner. Webshare is backed by Oxylabs, so the service won't vanish along with your money.

The downsides you should know about

• Datacenter IPs are easy to spot. Google, Amazon, large marketplaces and social networks often block server addresses or show them a CAPTCHA. Those sites need residential proxies, which cost more.
• Shared proxies have a "history". Other customers use the same addresses, and if one of them misbehaved, a site may already be blocking that IP. For important jobs, take dedicated or ISP proxies.
• Residential traffic runs out quietly. A browser-based scraper loads images, fonts and scripts, and a gigabyte goes fast. Below we show how to limit that.
• The free plan is only enough for testing. 1 GB a month is a few thousand lightweight pages without images.
• Strict refund terms. Refunds are only possible within a short window and with low usage, so test everything on the free plan first.
• Support isn't always quick to reply. Count on the documentation and your own skills, or on a developer.

Which proxies to choose for the job

We always start with the cheapest datacenter proxies and switch to residential ones only for the sites where the cheap ones don't get through. That keeps the proxy bill for a typical price scraper within a few dollars a month.

How to connect Webshare to a scraper

1. Sign up at Webshare: your 10 free proxies appear in the account right away.
2. In the dashboard, open the proxy list (Proxy List) and copy the address, port, username and password. You can also download the whole list as a file there.
3. If the scraper runs on a server with a fixed IP, you can add the server's address to the allowed list (IP authorization) instead of using a username and password.
4. Put the details into the code in place of HOST, PORT, LOGIN and PASSWORD.

Python and requests, for regular pages:

import requests

proxy = "http://LOGIN:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT"
r = requests.get("https://httpbin.org/ip", proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy}, timeout=30)
print(r.json())  # should show the proxy's IP, not your server's

Python and Playwright, for sites that load their data with scripts:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(proxy={
        "server": "http://HOST:PORT",
        "username": "LOGIN",
        "password": "PASSWORD",
    })
    page = browser.new_page()
    # skip images and fonts: saves residential proxy traffic
    page.route("**/*.{png,jpg,jpeg,webp,gif,svg,woff,woff2}", lambda route: route.abort())
    page.goto("https://httpbin.org/ip")
    print(page.inner_text("body"))
    browser.close()

Even with proxies, add delays between requests and timeouts: a hundred IPs are no reason to send a site a thousand requests a second. The more politely a scraper behaves, the longer its addresses last.

Our verdict

Webshare is the simplest way to give a scraper proxies: a free plan to test with, a hundred addresses for $3 for most jobs, and residential proxies for sites with serious protection. For enterprise volumes there are pricier providers with more options, but for small and mid-sized businesses Webshare is more than enough.

Contabo is a German hosting provider based in Munich, in business since 2003. The company sells virtual servers (VPS), servers with dedicated cores (VDS), dedicated servers and object storage. Its main data centers are in Germany, and it also has locations in the UK, the US, Asia and Australia.

Contabo is known for one thing: for the same money it gives you noticeably more RAM, cores and disk than most competitors. We use it for bots, scrapers, n8n and test servers, so this review comes from hands-on experience.

Plans and pricing

The main lineup is called Cloud VPS: plans numbered 10, 20, 30 and up. The entry-level Cloud VPS 10, as of October 2026, gives you:

The higher plans scale almost linearly: more cores, up to dozens of gigabytes of RAM and hundreds of gigabytes of disk. For comparison, premium providers usually give you 1 core and 1 GB of RAM for $5.

Pros

• Resources for pennies. 8 GB of RAM for the price others charge for 1-2 GB. That is the deciding argument for memory-hungry workloads: browser-based scrapers, databases, multiple Docker containers.
• A big disk. Enough room for logs, backups, files and databases without paying extra for more storage.
• Traffic isn't metered the way it is at many cloud providers, so there are no surprise bandwidth bills.
• European data centers. Germany is a solid choice for European audiences, with low latency.
• Basic DDoS protection is included.

The downsides the ads don't mention

• Lower and less consistent performance. The cores are virtual and shared with other customers, so in independent benchmarks per-core CPU and disk speed lag noticeably behind DigitalOcean. For most background jobs you won't notice, but for a busy production site you will.
• Servers aren't provisioned instantly. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours from payment to a ready server, while at DigitalOcean it takes a minute.
• No hourly billing. The minimum term is one month. You can't spin up a server for an hour of testing and then delete it.
• Unhurried support. They do reply, but not as fast as premium providers. Plan on relying on yourself or a sysadmin.
• Backups cost extra. A few snapshots are usually free, but automatic backups are paid separately. For important data, set up your own backups to another location.

What we recommend Contabo for

• Telegram bots, especially several on one server.
• Scrapers with browser automation (Playwright, Puppeteer) that need plenty of RAM.
• n8n and other self-hosted tools: automations with no limits on executions for €5 a month.
• Test and staging servers, where price matters more than maximum reliability.
• A backup server for your sites and databases, thanks to the large disk.
• Learning and side projects, where you want a powerful server without a big bill.

When to choose something else

• A production site or CRM where consistent speed and fast support matter: here we choose DigitalOcean.
• A WordPress site with no technical skills: it is simpler to get shared hosting, for example Hostinger, and skip server administration.
• Short experiments lasting a few hours: a provider with hourly billing is a better fit.

Contabo vs DigitalOcean

We often combine the two: production lives on DigitalOcean, while heavy background jobs and backups run on Contabo.

How to order and set it up

1. Choose a Cloud VPS plan. The entry-level one is enough for a bot or n8n.
2. Choose the region closest to your audience: for Europe, that's Germany.
3. Choose the Ubuntu 24.04 image and a login method. It is best to add an SSH key right away.
4. Choose the term. A longer term is usually cheaper per month and may waive the one-time setup fee.
5. Wait for the email with the IP address and login details.
6. Secure the server: a separate user, key-based login, a firewall. The step-by-step commands are in our deployment guide: everything from step 4 onward is the same for any Ubuntu VPS.

Our verdict

Contabo is great when you need lots of resources for minimal money and can live with somewhat lower and less consistent performance. For bots, scrapers, automations and test servers, it is one of the best-value options on the market. For mission-critical production, it is worth paying more for a premium provider.

Three types of hosting

Prices are approximate, as of October 2026. Exact amounts depend on the billing term and current promotions.

Shared hosting

Hundreds of websites from different owners live on one server, and the provider takes care of setup, updates and security. You get a control panel where you can install WordPress, create mailboxes and enable SSL in a few clicks.

Pros: cheap, simple, no Linux knowledge needed. Cons: resources are shared, so a noisy neighbor can eat into your performance; you can only run what the provider allows (usually PHP and MySQL). Not suitable for bots, scrapers or custom backends.

A typical example of this kind of hosting is Hostinger.

VPS

You rent a virtual server with a guaranteed share of CPU, RAM and disk, and you can do whatever you like with it: run Node.js, Python, Docker, databases, several bots at once. This very site runs on a VPS, by the way.

Pros: freedom, predictable performance, good value for money. Cons: the server has to be set up and maintained: updates, firewall, backups. That takes either your time or a sysadmin's.

Among VPS providers, we work most often with DigitalOcean (reliability and ease of use) and Contabo (maximum resources for minimum money).

Cloud and PaaS

Platforms such as DigitalOcean's App Platform, Vercel or Render take your code from GitHub and run, scale and update it for you. There is no server to manage, but as your load grows the bill grows faster than on a VPS, and you become more locked in to the platform.

What to choose for your project

• Landing page, small business site, WordPress blog. Shared hosting. There is no point paying more and administering a server.
• Online store. A small WooCommerce store runs fine on a good shared plan. A store with integrations, inventory sync and its own backend is better placed on a VPS with 2+ GB of RAM from day one.
• Telegram bot, CRM, Node.js or Python site. A VPS. 1-2 GB of RAM is enough to start.
• Scrapers, n8n, multiple bots, test servers, backups. A VPS with plenty of RAM and disk for little money, for example Contabo.
• A production project where reliability matters. A VPS from a provider with a good reputation, backups and monitoring, for example DigitalOcean.

Comparing the providers we work with

What to check before you buy

1. Renewal price. With many providers, especially for shared hosting, the first term is cheap and the renewal costs several times more. Look at the renewal price, not the intro price.
2. Data center location. Pick the data center closest to your audience: lower latency means faster page loads. For Europe that's Frankfurt, Amsterdam or another European location.
3. Backups. Find out whether automatic backups are included and how much they cost. Without backups, any mistake can cost you the whole site.
4. An account in your name. Your hosting and domain should be registered to you, and your developer only needs access. That way you are not dependent on a contractor.
5. Room to grow. It helps when you can upgrade your plan in a few clicks without migrating.

The bottom line

For a simple website, get shared hosting and keep it simple. For a bot, CRM or Node.js site, get a VPS: DigitalOcean if reliability and convenience matter, or Contabo if you need lots of resources for a minimal price. If you would rather not deal with the server yourself, we will pick hosting for your project and set everything up.

Hostinger is a Lithuanian hosting provider that sells shared hosting, cloud hosting, VPS and domains worldwide. Its main selling points: a low introductory price, its own simple hPanel control panel and WordPress installation in a few clicks.

We recommend Hostinger for landing pages, small business websites, blogs and small WordPress stores, especially when the owner wants to log in to the panel themselves without dealing with a server.

What a typical plan includes

What you get depends on the plan and current promotions, but Hostinger shared hosting usually includes:

• A free SSL certificate for every site on the account, so your site loads over https from day one.
• Email on your domain (for example, info@yourdomain.com), free to start.
• WordPress installation and automatic updates, plus Hostinger's own website builder.
• Backups: weekly on the entry-level plans, daily on the higher ones.
• A free domain for the first year when you pay for a year or more (this does not apply to every plan, so check in the cart).
• Several websites on one account on any plan above the cheapest.

Pros

• The intro price. Paid several years upfront, shared hosting costs a few dollars a month.
• A clear control panel. hPanel is simpler than classic cPanel: domains, email, SSL, backups and WordPress all in one place.
• A quick start. It takes just a few minutes to go from payment to a working WordPress site.
• Data centers in Europe. Pick the location closest to your audience so your site loads faster.
• 24/7 support via live chat.

The downsides you should know about

• The renewal price. This is the main catch. The low price only applies to the first term, and the renewal costs several times more. Compare renewal prices specifically, and don't be surprised by the bill in 2-4 years.
• The lowest price only with a long term. To get the advertised price, you have to pay several years upfront. Monthly billing is much more expensive.
• Shared hosting limits. Resources are shared with other sites, and you can only run supported technologies. For a Telegram bot, a scraper or a custom backend, a VPS is the better choice.
• Unnecessary upsells in the cart. At checkout you will be offered extra services. Most of them are not needed at the start.

Who Hostinger is for

• A business owner who needs a landing page or a small business website without complex integrations.
• A blog or a small WordPress / WooCommerce store.
• Agencies and freelancers who keep several small client sites on one account.

Who should choose something else

• Node.js, Python or Docker projects. A VPS is a better fit, for example DigitalOcean. Hostinger also has VPS plans, but then it matters more to compare specific specs and prices.
• Bots, scrapers, n8n. They need a server running 24/7 with its own processes. Contabo gives you lots of resources for little money.
• Large stores with real traffic. Shared hosting quickly runs into its limits here.

How to get a good deal: step by step

1. Decide how many sites you plan to host. The cheapest plan is enough for a single landing page; for several sites, take the next one up.
2. Choose the term. A longer term gives a lower monthly price but is paid all at once. One or two years is usually a sensible compromise.
3. Remove any extras you don't need from the cart.
4. After paying, choose the data center closest to your audience and install WordPress or upload your site files.
5. Connect your domain: if you didn't buy it from Hostinger, change the NS records at your registrar to the ones hPanel shows you.
6. Check that SSL is enabled and set up email on your domain.

Our verdict

Hostinger is a good choice for simple websites: cheap to start, convenient and fast. Just keep the renewal price in mind and don't try to run on shared hosting what really needs a server.

Step 1. Sign up and get starting credit

Sign up for DigitalOcean and add a card. New users who sign up through a referral link get credit for the first 60 days, which is more than enough to test everything at your own pace.

Step 2. SSH key

Logging in with a key is more secure than a password. If you don't have a key yet, create one on your own computer:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "you@example.com"
cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Copy the public key it prints: you will need it when creating the server.

Step 3. Create a Droplet

In the control panel, click Create → Droplets and choose:

• Region: the one closest to your audience; for Europe that's Frankfurt or Amsterdam.
• Image: Ubuntu 24.04 (LTS) x64.
• Size: Basic, Regular, 1 GB of RAM. That is enough for a bot or a small site. You can upgrade later.
• Authentication: SSH Key, paste the key from step 2.
• Backups: turn them on if the server will hold data you would hate to lose (it costs a fraction of the server price).

In a minute the server is ready and its IP address appears in the panel.

Step 4. First login and a separate user

ssh root@SERVER_IP
apt update && apt upgrade -y
adduser deploy
usermod -aG sudo deploy
rsync --archive --chown=deploy:deploy ~/.ssh /home/deploy

From here on we work as deploy, not root: that way a bug in the app can't give access to the whole system.

Step 5. Firewall

We open only SSH and the web ports:

ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow 80,443/tcp
ufw enable

Alternative: the Cloud Firewall in the DigitalOcean panel, which filters traffic before it reaches the server and is configured with a few clicks.

Step 6. Install Node.js

We install the current LTS version from the official NodeSource repository (24.x at the time of writing):

ssh deploy@SERVER_IP
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_24.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs git
node -v

Step 7. Get the code onto the server

git clone https://github.com/you/your-app.git ~/app
cd ~/app
npm ci --omit=dev

Keep secrets (the bot token, database passwords) in a .env file on the server, not in the repository.

Step 8. Autostart with systemd

systemd already ships with Ubuntu: it will start the app after a reboot and restart it if it crashes. Create the file /etc/systemd/system/app.service:

[Unit]
Description=Node.js app
After=network.target

[Service]
User=deploy
WorkingDirectory=/home/deploy/app
EnvironmentFile=/home/deploy/app/.env
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node server.js
Restart=always
RestartSec=3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Start it and watch the logs:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now app
journalctl -u app -f

For a Telegram bot using long polling, this is already enough: it's up and running. For a website or a webhook-based bot, keep going.

Step 9. nginx in front of the app

nginx accepts requests from the internet, passes them to the app on port 3000, and also handles HTTPS and compression.

sudo apt install -y nginx
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/app

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com www.example.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/app /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Step 10. Domain and free SSL

At your domain registrar, create an A record for example.com and www pointing to the server's IP address. Once DNS has updated (usually anywhere from a few minutes to an hour), get a Let's Encrypt certificate:

sudo apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d example.com -d www.example.com

Certbot adds HTTPS to the nginx config itself and sets up automatic certificate renewal.

Step 11. Backups and updates

• Droplet backups in the panel take a copy of the whole server weekly or daily. You can also take a snapshot before risky changes.
• Database: a separate daily dump to storage (for example, DigitalOcean Spaces) is a good idea even if you have server backups.
• Security updates in Ubuntu are installed automatically via unattended-upgrades. Update everything else once a month: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade.

How much it costs

The most basic Droplet with 1 GB of RAM costs around $6 per month, and backups add 20-30% to the server price. You pay for the time the server actually runs: delete the server and billing stops. Prices are approximate as of October 2026; check the DigitalOcean website for current ones.

If you need lots of RAM for scrapers or several projects, and consistent performance is not critical, compare with Contabo: you get more resources for the same money.