Website Hosting

[Mikius10001]

Hello,

 

Let me begin by apologizing as I'm fairly certain this is in the wrong sub forum, I just couldn't figure out where to put it.

 

I'm currently in the research and planning phase of starting a small non-profit organization and I had a couple questions regarding web hosting that I was hoping someone may be able to help me with.

 

My first and main question is, would I be better off building a rig for dedicated hosting or leaving it up to some company online? (godaddy just as an example) Keeping in mind that I'm not expecting this site to take off in a heartbeat but to have a gradual increase to what I'm hoping/anticipating to be around 300-400 or so hits a week (like I said, nothing major).

 

If your answer to question one would be to build my own rig and maintain the server myself (which I would have to teach myself to do at the basic level), what would that CPU require as a main staple. Obviously a GPU is unnecessary, and mobo w/ onboard should suffice to view windows, but would it need to be CPU intensive, RAM intensive? I've never built a dedicated hosting machine before.

 

Any and all help would be appreciate, thanks for your time.

[tahmidkhan123]

since you are just starting and aren't necessarily expecting a lot of hits, an outside company will work just fine but if you start getting several thousand hits per week, then consider setting up your own server. But offsite website hosting is usually sufficient for most needs. 

[Blake]

 

-snip-

 

since you are just starting and aren't necessarily expecting a lot of hits, an outside company will work just fine but if you start getting several thousand hits per week, then consider setting up your own server. But offsite website hosting is usually sufficient for most needs. 

Completely wrong and right.

 

Real answer: business requirements. Need to maintain data sovereignty? in house is going to be much easier, much lower technical debt. Does the service experience massive jumps in usage (i.e. peak time), might be an idea to go with hosting (AWS/Azure) so you aren't paying for heaps of HW to sit around doing nothing in non-peak times.

[Mikius10001]

(Shameful bump)

 

Not that I don't trust you two, just looking for a couple more opinions

[Jury]

Woah, don't even THINK about your own server for a small non-profit. The power consumption alone justifies off-site hosting. If your doing something more intensive, consider a VPS.

[Digital]

I'd personally in this case pick an online hosting provider. Building the PC and it's power consumption will otherwise become way more cost than the website will profit you.

 

Also you'll be needing less knowledge of how the servers work as you will be provided with a more user friendly web GUI.

[Mikius10001]

Appreciated everyone

 

Next question, who would you recommend for reliable and cheap hosting? I know there are a ton out there and narrowing down the best is proving to be difficult as I don't know many people who had put websites up.