I have an idea for a web app (or 2). The more complex idea is to present information, then ask questions to test retention of the information.<p>I would appreciate advice regarding cheap hosting, recommended stacks for implementation and how to learn best practices for secure storage of data.<p>I'll continue looking on the web for info, however I have a feeling that those on here will have better answers.
I think your explanation is too generic to get good advice. You should expand on what you want to do if possible.<p>I think the best way I can explain it is that this feels the same as contacting a caterer and saying "I have an event with people, what should I serve?" Any good answer would require knowing the type of event, the venue, dietary requirements, number of people, budget etc. Same with you task, but we need to know more about skills, specific functionality, goals, etc.<p>The actual answer, in my opinion, is that hosting, software stack and secure storage of data aren't a big concern at this point. You have an idea. Turn that into a plan including all the features you think you need to launch a first version of your app. Remove 50% of the features. Remove another 50%. Talk to potential customers. When you have a solid plan, then you can start worrying about how to make it happen. Then build it using whatever software stack you know best.
I think you should elaborate further on what your skill set/s are, so you can get specific feedback on stack, hosting and implementation.<p>To get started on hosting, it's hard to beat something like Digital Ocean; $5 or $10 / month and you can run all your test infrastructure (and if you feel like staying with them, push a button and scale as your app demands it). There are a few other good cheap options to get started, such as OVH, if you want a dedicated box; ramnode is interesting.
If it's a webapp and you do not have much knowledge of java/.net frameworks then go for LAMP(PHP/MYSQL). And i assume that you already know basic HTML and Java script