I'm currently working on an e-commerce store for my uncle so that he can sell his sportswear goods online through his site, he asked for this favor when I told him I'm a web developer, and I said I'd do it free of cost knowing his financial situation.
So in cases such as these what I do is: I get the domain and hosting from GoDaddy and host the files on their servers which runs cPanel on top of Apache, and just serve the static REACT files. I can't run node on these servers as I buy the economy plan to cut costs(no node.js = No server side rendering with next.js or other cool server stuff). Creating an e-commerce store is a whole different ballgame I cant just serve static files so I have two options (I think):
a. learn WordPress, install WooCommerce, walk the walk of shame, Profit.
b. Use the google cloud or other similar platforms and break my uncles back with costs just so that I can add some experience to my resume.
I have a few questions now:
GoDaddy is using Apache on its servers can I somehow manually install node on the server and get away with it? because the server can execute php scripts on a shared hosting plan so maybe even JavaScript too if I'm lucky?
What are some service providers that are as cheap/cheaper/slightly expensive than GoDaddy's economy plan that can run node out the box or with little configuration?
I've heard its possible to integrate react with WordPress/WooCommerce, do I retain the full extent of react/JavaScript this way? what are the limitations to this technique?
Maybe I'm wrong about how expensive it'd be to use a cloud platform but I'm afraid of what'll happen when traffic increases, I've heard its actually cheap maybe it's because the people saying so actually live in Canada or USA but even 10 dollars a month in Pakistan is a huge deal for the average joe.
The economy plans provides an ssl certificate and a free domain, both of which are very helpful, so any alternative should provide the same value.
I tried reading the GoDaddy documentation, cPanel documentation checked other service provider did alot of searching and tried doing it on my own but I don't know if I'm going in the right direction. I also tired to google the answers to my questions, used some chatbots as well, but I figured I'd use my communication skills to actually talk to someone who knows a thing or two.
It's impossible to run NextJS on a typical shared hosting plan. If you want to run a Node site, the best way to do that for free is probably something like replit or glitch. With that said, those aren't great options. Most VPS providers will give you a basic plan for roughly $5/month if you want to go that route.
If your site uses Next, just use Vercel. It's free, and is built to run Next. You can deploy straight from GitHub.
If you want free SSL, use Cloudflare. Domains aren't free, you're paying for them regardless- but .com domains are roughly $12/year, so that seems like a reasonable investment under most circumstances.