Budget Self-Hosted Stack
I run five side projects on one DigitalOcean Droplet for $24 a month. This stack handles 80k monthly visitors combined and has taught me more about infrastructure than years of managed platforms ever did.
Public stack
This is the portfolio stack I wish I had during internship season: projects, resume, writing samples, and a contact flow that looks credible to recruiters without costing student-budget money.
Workflow stack
Proof of real work
Recruiters can inspect actual commits, README quality, and project history, which matters more than claiming you know a tool on a resume bullet.
Open tool profileLive deployments
Each update is live on a clean URL in minutes, so portfolio polish never gets blocked on ops or shared hosting setup.
Open tool profileContact delivery
Contact forms land in your inbox reliably and look professional, which beats putting your raw student email address all over the site.
Open tool profilePrivacy-safe analytics
See which projects or resume pages get attention without adding creepy tracking that feels out of place on a personal site.
Open tool profileDeveloper-first transactional email API with React Email, webhooks, multi-region sending, and plans from free daily caps to Pro at $20/month for 50,000 emails with optional pay-as-you-go overages.
Privacy-first site analytics: from $15/mo (or $150/yr, 2 months free), 50 sites, 30-day trial; no permanent free tier—custom events count like pageviews (usefathom.com/pricing).
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