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I need somewhere to host NodeJS for a new game I am working on. I have tried a few of the Nodejs specific but some do not support websockets yet and others are a pain to get going so I think a linux or windows XP box will suffice. Looking for something cheap.

Did you look at Azure? I believe they support websockets. It seems to be easy to get a server for free for a long time. I forget whether or not they have a straight up free tier.

Azure is very different from a standard VPS. Azure is more like Amazon EC2 in that it is both a VPS and an entire app-building platform. I believe what Halls is looking for is more of a standard VPS, where you are just paying for a virtualized piece of someone's server. Unfortunately, I have never rented a VPS, and thus don't have a great suggestion

Does A Small Orange not offer VPS? I know a lot of web hosts do offer VPS as well. If they do, maybe you could get a small discount by having it all with one provider.

I'm pretty sure they have VPS also, but if they have node.js hosting as a PaaS and support websockets, a VPS wouldn't be needed.

I was not a believer in Platforms as a Service until I started using them recently. I've been using Heroku for a rails app and MongoLabs for my database, and it's been awesome to not have to worry about anything except for writing code. There's a lot more stuff you have to deal with generally when using a VPS, and it's stuff that indirectly related to your app most of the time. PaaS is generally more expensive but at least most have free tiers so you can try it out.

The node.js on Azure is quite different than vanilla node.js. Back when node was Linux-only, I found the node.js Azure right after it went up. I figured that may be my only option to work with it for a while until it came to Windows, but basically none of the official tutorials worked for it because it was loaded with Microsoft extensions. Once node came to Windows as a binary, I went back and finally everything worked! If Azure offers straight VPS, that could be an option, but Azure has always been kind of a "premium option" from a price standpoint. A basic Linux VPS would likely cost about 40% as much.

If you like Azure and want to try it out, there are ways to get it free for a year plus some stuff:

https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/SignUp/default.aspx

Checkout the bizspark, webspark, etc. From what I can tell they are trying to rope people/startups to using azure. Depending on what you want, good hosting for free for a year is pretty cool.

I feel like I'm pushing Azure too hard, I am just a fan of PaaS and they seemed to fit what Halls was looking for originally. A linux virtual machine would definitely be cheaper. We had a VPS on dreamhost. You can get one for like 6 bucks a month or something now. You do not get root access from what I remember though. I didn't deal much with the server configuration though so I could be wrong.

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments

I have a dedicated server that is sitting at idle most of the time. 15 MB/s download 5MB/s upload. I could lend you some space for a few months. If interested drop me a line.

Awesome!