How much compute to host a website? Wordpress | Unraid

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

I know the answer is: it depends... BUT can I gauge some idea of the hardware demands associated with web hosting, is this a 4, 6 or more core CPU job? 

Most likely its a Word Press site, I want to change from Wix to improve my sites performance
So I want to make sure I'm not bottlenecked by hardware while trying to achieve peak porformance

Website is fairly basic with 6 pages, mostly loading images which I have already compressed. And a few applications like IG feed, forms and store.
Users would be quite low


Just want to understand the hardware demands before building this server rig 

Other dockers on Unraid server are nextcloud, jellyfin, paperless and Windows VM

[Eigenvektor]

CPU and RAM demand for a simple static website should be very low. You'll primarily want good bandwidth.

 

Since you already have a graph for visitors, I assume you have an existing site? CPU/RAM usage of the existing system would be the best starting point for an estimation.

[Bersella AI]

No, for such website, even a virtual cloud web-host with single CPU core would be sufficient. It's all about bandwidth when it comes to accessibility. I'm running a blog site with all pseudo-static pages built by Hexo, and it only requires more bandwidth to be faster.

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

4 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

CPU and RAM demand for a simple static website should be very low. You'll primarily want good bandwidth.

 

Since you already have a graph for visitors, I assume you have an existing site? CPU/RAM usage of the existing system would be the best starting point for an estimation.

its a wix site, they host it.

Reagarding bandwidth:


OK good to know it doesn't take much compute, my 12400 should cover all bases

 

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

4 hours ago, Bersella AI said:

No, for such website, even a virtual cloud web-host with single CPU core would be sufficient. It's all about bandwidth when it comes to accessibility. I'm running a blog site with all pseudo-static pages built by Hexo, and it only requires more bandwidth to be faster.

100-200 Mbps should do it?.. its more as matter of consistency and uptime with my ISP...
But the way I see it my server will pay for itself in a couple of years since I can exclude wix web & hosting fees

[MG2R]

When you say things like “my server will pay for itself”, keep in mind that there’s a lot of hidden costs to hosting your own solution:

 

- electricity: running 24/7 web service with a 12400 machine costs anywhere between 50 and 250 USD yearly depending on your rate

- opportunity cost: running something 24/7 means you’ll be spending time keeping the system going, updated, and secure, which you can’t use for whatever it is you make money with

- downtime costs: your simple server on your simple residential connection will not be up nearly as often as any proper hosted solution. Think about the impact of your website being down. Is it problematic? Well, congrats you’re now 24/7 on-call to keep the system going. 
- uptime costs: to mitigate downtime, you’ll want highly available servers, power, internet. That costs a lot of money

 

take it from someone that has worked in the industry: web hosting is expensive if you want to do it right. The margins are terrible.

 

Now, if this project is not something that can never go down and you simply like playing with technology, by all means go for it. I do it too for those reasons.
 

But if this is something that is in any way required to be up 24/7 or your world burns down, think twice and host with a professional hoster. 

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

17 hours ago, MG2R said:

Now, if this project is not something that can never go down and you simply like playing with technology, by all means go for it. I do it too for those reasons.
 

But if this is something that is in any way required to be up 24/7 or your world burns down, think twice and host with a professional hoster. 

 

 

So the performance is why i want to move to Wordpress (or another option) Im also getting google warnings about the speed.

 

Wix maybe easy to use, but I'm not really satisfied with SEO and load time performance.
I will have 2 servers running around the clock anyway, so by simply hosting a website would not add any real cost to me. 

A yes, I like to tinker with technology, so even if I broke even or it costs me to self host but I end up with a faster website, its a win for me. 
Also it not the end of the world if my ISP decideds to do maintenance and shuts things down for an hour.
 

[Bersella AI]

22 hours ago, K1LLA_KING_KONG said:

100-200 Mbps should do it?.. its more as matter of consistency and uptime with my ISP...
But the way I see it my server will pay for itself in a couple of years since I can exclude wix web & hosting fees

I don't think bandwidth would be the only consideration in self-hosting. Besides what @MG2R has said, the host may be vulnerable on cyber attacks, such as DDoS, exploits in WordPress or anything else, all of which would mess your mind up indefinitely. By paying to cloud services, you have not only a robust server, but also all of mitigations & protections performed by professionals.

[MG2R]

On 7/15/2023 at 5:48 AM, K1LLA_KING_KONG said:

 

Your server is in Canada but your audience is in Bali. That’s your problem. You’re crossing an ocean for each request. 
 

Find a web host that’s local to you. Even running a simple VM in a datacenter there and you’ll already be better off than whatever solution you’ll make at home. 
 

Your Google score goes down quite fast if your website is unreliable. Get a professional hoster in your area and don’t look back. 

[K1LLA_KING_KONG]

17 minutes ago, MG2R said:

Your server is in Canada but your audience is in Bali. That’s your problem. You’re crossing an ocean for each request. 
 

Find a web host that’s local to you. Even running a simple VM in a datacenter there and you’ll already be better off than whatever solution you’ll make at home. 
 

Your Google score goes down quite fast if your website is unreliable. Get a professional hoster in your area and don’t look back. 

No, thats just the default setting for https://gtmetrix.com/ 
The website is WIX, I'm sure they have servers all over the world.

But yes this could also be a large contributor. As 50% of my traffic would be from Bali, Indonesia. Ideally my server is here too rather than WIX hosted

Heres another test using Australia server location:

[MG2R]

oh wait, I misread this. Didn’t realise it said test server location. I thought it said simply “server location” and figured it was the wix server you were connecting to. Sorry for that. 
 

Regardless, what I said isn’t untrue. Say you were to host your server in Australia, you would still have to contest with physics for clients in Bali:

 

according to https://wondernetwork.com/pings/

 

simply setting up a TLS connection is already three round trips before you’ve even started transferring the first bit of actual request or payload data.

 

Now, I’m not saying Wix is a superb host or whatever. The only thing I hope to really get across is that there’s a reason most businesses don’t host their websites on a self built computer in a closet under the stairs. In your case I’d look for a different hoster if you’re unsatisfied with your current.  
 

if you want to go for it, by all means do. I mean the traffic you’re talking about will probably be able to be handled by a raspberry pi. Just know that you WILL have downtime at the absolute worst possible time and you will hate every second of it at that moment.

 

Otherwise self-hosting is a fun learning experience. I’ve been self-hosting as much as possible for years now. Even hosted my own mail server for years. They put me in the mad house for masochistic tendencies when they found out.

[MG2R]

There's another layer to this I missed entirely. This "performance analysis" has nothing to do with the hosting directly. It's looking at website render performance in the browser mostly. If you keep the same website but host it yourself your metrics won't magically improve.

 

Keep in mind: for me here Belgium your website loads just fine and is snappy so read from that what you will.

 

If it is dog-slow for you then it's probably because wix does not have a server close to you. Same conclusion as before: try a different hoster, maybe one specifically aimed at Indonesia.