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Hosting at Home vs a Hosting Service
Published 2024-01-04 16:55:14
Updated 2024-07-19 14:36:46
Written by jbick
An article outlining when to host at home or utilize a hosting service. This will detail the costs of each and when either one is right for you.
There is a whirlwind of options when it comes to getting your website online. You can go to a platform like WIX where they will host your website for you and even create it. You can go to a hosting company like hostinger, liquid web or site valley. Lastly you can host your own website at home.
Hosting as a service
Most of the time just having somebody else serve your hosting needs is the more advantageous way to go in terms of cost and quality. They would manage things like the electricity needed to operate your server and the cost of Internet for example.
A shared hosting plan would be more than sufficient for a simple website such as a blog or a business contact page. As a website grows more resources become required. I operated my network of websites off a VPS for years, however I had to purchase more and more VPS packages as time went on.
Shared Hosting
Shared hosting is going to be the cheapest of all options however you are not in full control over your web hosting needs. You are given an account that's sharing a server with several other websites and are not given root access. This usually consists of one Linux directory that is all yours and you administrate things through a plat-form called C-PANEL.
VPS hosting
You are given a slice of the pie so to speak with a virtual machine. This usually starts at 9.99 per month and will give you at least one dedicated IP address. You are given root access to your virtual machine, however you are then required to configure your web hosting configurations for yourself.
The biggest disadvantage to a VPS service is the cost for storage. At 5$ / 10 GB that can become quite costly, fast.
Dedicated server
A dedicated server can get pretty expensive fast. This is your own server, rented on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis inside of a data-center. Aside from the cost, this is as close as it gets to hosting at home in terms of access level.
Site Valley dedicated server starts at $199.00/ month for it's Atlanta, USA data center.
Hosting at home
Hosting your own website at home does have countless advantages however there are some caveats. It requires a higher than average internet connection and some computer expertise.
Requirements for hosting at home
- A dedicated computer to function as a server. This could be your retired desktop computer or it could be a dedicated rack mountable server. A rack mountable server with multiple CPUs will typically be optimal for operating virtual machines.
- High Speed Internet Connection. Fiber optic internet is optimal for hosting anything at your home or business.
- Increased electricity usage. Expect to see 15-30$ in increased electricity consumption. This will typically depend on how much your particular server is working to meet its request demands i.e. 1,000 website visitors per month or 100,000 website visitors per month. 100,000 visitors per month would mean your server is working consistently more often, there by increasing it's electricity consumption.
- An IP address that doesn't change often. A static IP address is preferable in any hosting environment, but it does come with significant costs. Most ISP's will not give you a static address unless you purchase business internet services.
Here are photo's of increased electricity consumption costs. The November bill is PRE server installation. The December bill is POST server running 24 hours a day. These electricity costs reflect the operation of 1 internet radio station and 30 websites.
Advantages of hosting at your home or business
- You are in full control. If your server is in your facility you are it's owner. The only one who can shut you down is your ISP.
- Exact choice of operating system. This goes with being in control of your server, but you can choose from any flavor of Linux or Windows depending on which ever is needed.
- No additional fees for storage expansion. If your website gets to large you would have to purchase more storage at a hosting company. If your server is at home you can simply purchase more hard drives, back up your web files, create a new partition with the additional storage attached and there is no additional monthly cost.
- Server is close to you making super fast collaboration with your server. Every time you update your website or database you're only networking across the house instead of 1,000 miles away to a data center.
What can be hosted at home?
If you have read the above and have decided to host at home, here are common things you can in-fact do at home. Linux is available for free and is capable of doing all of the following things.
- Web Hosting
- Database Hosting
- Mail Server Hosting
- File Share Hosting
- API hosting. This would be the combination of database and web hosting in most cases
- Host an Internet Radio Station
Hosting Service or at Home: Links
Hosting at home or within a data center has its pros and cons depending on your needs and budget. It also depends on fiber network availability or not.
A sitevalley dedicated server is going to be the same thing as if you setup your own server but it is within there data center instead of at your home.
Sitevalley is a very reliable company, I have used there services since 2013 and have been with other hosting providers such as host gator, 1and1, Liquid Web, in Motion hosting and others. Sitevalley is the best for the cost.
The following links consist of sitevalley.com, betterparts.biz
Dell Severs - Power-edge, Rack Mountable
Sitevalley Hosting Services
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