# Hosting Research on hosting providers for digital services # Pricing and integration comparison ### Squarespace Yeah, gross, I know. [https://www.squarespace.com/pricing](https://www.squarespace.com/pricing) lists the basic site plans, emails are an additional charge:[![Screenshot 2025-08-10 at 6.06.08 PM.png](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-10-at-6-06-08-pm-png.png)](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-10-at-6-06-08-pm-png.png) So a basic site with 5,000 sends is $16 (site) + $14 (emails) = $30, with up to 20 lists, segmentation, and on-site form integration. ### Shopify Even more gross. Shopify has a limit of 10,000 monthly emails, even with their cheapest plan, $30/month ### Electric Embers Basic groups (no custom domain) = $15 month, depending on how they choose to price us, 10,000 message limit. Custom groups (custom domain) = $35 month, depending on how they choose to price us, 25,000 message limit. No seamless form integration with outside site,. Possible to modify template files to modify subscription page in order to maybe do a relatively clean iframe embed. ### Riseup Free, no custom domain, no seamless form integration, no access to templates. ### freelists.org No size limit, unknown backend, customization, or embed options. They don't allow for making test lists, so I didn't. Example list homepage: [https://www.freelists.org/list/pure\_bullshit](https://www.freelists.org/list/pure_bullshit) ### Mayfirst Supports custom sub-domains. It feels like we should be able to have mailman listserves with the basic $50/yr plan but this might be up to their judgement based on our operating budget. ### Gaggle [https://gaggle.email/pricing](https://gaggle.email/pricing) free for up to 1000 members. at least $10/mo for paid plan that enables searching email archive and using a custom domain in a normal way. the free version lets you use a custom domain [but in a hackier way](https://help.gaggle.email/article/258-how-use-your-domain-send-custom-redirects) that involves an externally-hosted mailbox on your custom domain forwarding all its mail to the gaggle list. https://help.gaggle.email/article/258-how-use-your-domain-send-custom-redirects ### Koumbit $88/yr plan includes 50gb storage on a shared host, 100 email mailboxes, mailing lists via mailman. It's slightly ambiguous to me if their mailman supports custom domains or not. I am waiting to hear back via email (p cm) One can also apply for solidarity pricing, but the application for this needs to be re-submitted every year. They replied to my email and said they do support custom subdomains for mailing lists, but gave the following caveat: > That said, our system works well for mailing lists within a work team, for instance. It works well up to about 250 people, I would say. We do have some clients with mailing lists with 2500 people, but the emails will take a couple days to reach everyone. # Backdrop/Drupal Calendar proof of concept [https://dev-wb-backdrop-test.pantheonsite.io/woodbine-public-event-calendar](https://dev-wb-backdrop-test.pantheonsite.io/woodbine-public-event-calendar) ## Basic Overview [![Screenshot 2025-08-12 at 9.33.36 AM.png](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-9-33-36-am-png.png)](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-9-33-36-am-png.png) ### Main Calendar Main calendar would be a table, with columns for date, event, time. Other columns could be added: \- "Add to calendar" button for visitors to add individual events to their calendar. \- Links to a general page for the sponsoring WG, or a general page for categories like "book clubs," "wellness," etc. [![screenshot-2025-08-29-at-2-42-12-pm.png](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-29-at-2-42-12-pm-png.png)](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-29-at-2-42-12-pm-png.png) ### Scheduling Tools Event managers (rental coordinators, programming group) would have access to a series of "Scheduling tools" via a sidebar or scheduling menu. It's possible that WGs might be able to post draft events that require confirmation from programming. If draft events were posted by WGs, it might be possible to send emails or ping a chat platform (just probably not Signal). ## Technical Stuff [![Screenshot 2025-08-12 at 9.35.27 AM.png](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-9-35-27-am-png.png)](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-9-35-27-am-png.png) Events can have numerous "fields" attached, e.g. organizer, capacity, whether it's a rental, status (hold, awaiting deposit, confirmed). Displays can be created for private or public use - so the public event listing won't show organizer name/contact, but logged in users will see it. Custom feeds can also be made, so that event coordinators can have calendar feeds via google, ical, etc. and not have to log into the site. They would have to log-in to **manage** events. Private fields can be inserted into the event description for organizers. See following .ics has organizer name inserted into event description, to provide organizer with detailed information via a calendar feed. [![Screenshot 2025-08-12 at 9.50.10 AM.png](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-9-50-10-am-png.png)](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-9-50-10-am-png.png) # Wiki This wiki (https://wiki.ridgewoodcommons.nyc) is hosted on a pikapods instance. The credentials can be added to our bitwarden. --- Bookstack is seeing some usage - let's figure out what options there are to keeping it up for folks. ## Selfhosting Currently selfhosting, with single sign-on, and anubis protection - Backup strategy is 'backup the whole damn disk' via a checkbox on DigitalOcean - Would need to migrate accounts, and pages to new infra if we want to selfhost - If we selfhost, we might wanna adopt something like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJPYeTeq7q0 ## Commons Hosting ### Mayfirst Can run php, would have to manually install bookstack. Not sure how managed/hands-on we would have to be, or just ask them to set it up for us. ### Koumbit Can run php, would have to manually install bookstack. Not sure how managed/hands-on we would have to be, or just ask them to set it up for us. ## Commercial Hosting None of the [listserv providers](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/books/rc-tech-admin "Newsletter and Listserv info") offer bookstack hosting. Bookstack has a list of providers in the installation docs [https://www.bookstackapp.com/docs/admin/installation/#other](https://www.bookstackapp.com/docs/admin/installation/#other) Of these hosts, the following look promising [Peak Networks](https://www.peaknetworks.com/hosting/bookstack-hosting) [PikaPods](https://www.pikapods.com/login?redirect=%2Fpods) [Elestio](https://elest.io/open-source/bookstack) [Cloud Above](https://cloudabove.com/hosting/starter) I know nothing about these providers, other than they are cheaper than what we are currently paying, and we don't need to admin it. We do need to trust their admins though, as I think bookstack is not E2EE. # May First reportback ### [https://mayfirst.coop/en/](https://mayfirst.coop/en/) ### Cost inquiry in 8/12/25 ~LP I sent an email asking about costs before I found their pricing page, it's a bit complicated, so dialogue might still be necessary: [https://mayfirst.coop/en/member-benefits/](https://mayfirst.coop/en/member-benefits/) Basic shared hosting for us would be $125/yr for basic services and 100G (Plan 2) A VPS (fully managed or partially managed) would be $70/month for 25 GB system disk, 1 CPU core, 1 GB of RAM. ### Server & Applications Most users run shared infra. Creates some limitations on docker based stuff: [https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/shared-hosting-supported-applications](https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/shared-hosting-supported-applications) But they do offer VPS services as well: https://mayfirst.coop/en/services/ Core offerings: - Email is structured with separate components for user/address/inbox, see: [https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/about-email](https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/about-email) - Mailing lists via GNU [Mailman](https://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/) - Websites (HTML or CMS-based) [https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/about-websites](https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/about-websites) - [Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com) - Unclear what modules they have running - Chat/forums - Jabber/XMPP ([Gajim](https://gajim.org/)), [Discourse](https://www.discourse.org) - Videoconference - [Jitsi](https://meet.jit.si) ### Infrastructure map/topology [https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/why-new-infrastructure](https://help.mayfirst.org/en/explain/why-new-infrastructure) ### Red flags & potential issues ##### Documentation Some of their help pages and documentation is incomplete or broken [![Screenshot 2025-08-12 at 5.36.58 PM.png](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-5-36-58-pm-png.png)](https://fortunate-mink.pikapod.net/uploads/images/gallery/2026-08/scaled-1680-/screenshot-2025-08-12-at-5-36-58-pm-png.png) ^^^ [https://help.mayfirst.org/en/links/common-tasks](https://help.mayfirst.org/en/links/common-tasks)