Host Own Website or Hosting Company?

[olimits7]

Hello,

I was wondering what kind of setup everyone has for their website, do you host your website on your own server or do you just use a hosting company? And if you use a hosting company are you on a shared or dedicated server?

What are some advantages/disadvantages of each hosting option (shared, dedicated, and own server)?

What do you think some of the well known websites use (overstock.com, amazon.com, buy.com, etc....)?

Sorry for all the questions just trying to see what everyone thinks. :-)

Thank you,

olimits7

[Wlauzon]

I would guess that less than 1 in 10,000 host on their own server.

[Rugles]

>>>What do you think some of the well known websites use (overstock.com, amazon.com, buy.com, etc....)?

They would own the servers, and probably have a back-up servers with a large telecom.

[vite_rts]

I think it goes like this

1, firstimers/hobbyists - free wwebspace with ISP

2, new business no money - shared hosting with hosting co

3, busy or established business with some cash - dedicated server with hosting co

4, Internet giant, ebay, google, msn etc - large building patrolled by guards,techies, Doctorates, pr people, video diarists, filled with super duper servers, an megawide bandwith connections to telephone network,,o

[jsinger]

3, busy or established business with some cash - dedicated server with hosting co

We have cash and a pretty good online business, but we don't have our own server at our host. Should we?

I would guess that less than 1 in 10,000 host on their own server.

Hmmm. Do most of you agree with that, even for midsized sites?

[derekwong28]

We have cash and a pretty good online business, but we don't have our own server at our host. Should we?

YES!

1. Tour site will probably run faster. This is not only important for customers but also when you are administering the site.
2. The server will be less likely to crash because there is less interference from other people's sites.
3. Sometimes, when the scripts on a server are updated, the shopping cart becomes inoperatble. With a dedicated server, you can ask your webhost to revert quickly to the previous installtion. However, you may have problems requesting this in a shared hosting environment

I would guess that less than 1 in 10,000 host on their own server.
Hmmm. Do most of you agree with that, even for midsized sites?

I think what he meant was a site hosting its own servers in its own installtion with its own staff. I would agree with this statement.

[jsinger]

Thanks for your opinion, Derek. This is a good subject that deserves more posts than it's getting.

An excellent ISP is now hosting us on a shared basis. They've been nearly 100% reliable and almost instantly responsive day or night when rare technical issues arise.

I'll at least give some thought to upgrading to a dedicated server there.

[axgrindr]

I'm in the "3. busy or established business with some cash" and have just upgraded to a dedicated server and couldn't be happier. It has actually worked out to be cheaper as we had 5 or 6 websites hosted in a shared environment all being paid for separately.
With the dedicated server (includes 5 static ip addresses and unlimited virtual domains) we moved all of our sites to the one server and closed our accounts on the shared server.
The support is great, I love having root-like administration. We should have done this years ago.
Based on my experience I highly recommend moving to a dedicated server to anyone in category 3.

[wingslevel]

once you get your own box, it gets kind of addicting...

we have 10 boxes, firewall, switch, and aps power strip - we can really share loads between boxes, set up stage sites to q&a etc. - also, we have our own mailserver now etc. - its a slippery slope, but i think it is well worth it...

[Oliver Henniges]

We updated to a dedicated server a couple of months ago.

I'd agree to the others that running your own box causes quite a number of additional tasks (security issues, permanent availability -> uninterruptable power supply et.c.), which I am not able to implement or maintain at present.

Nevertheless, I just finished to code the beginnings of an email notification-system for my customers. Availability of your products is an important part of this, and here the advantages of your own box become quite obvious.

It is almost impossible to synchronize internet-orders with our everyday local sellings; this would at least require permanent availability of the internet connection and telephone line, which I actually cannot rely on. I will never give up taking that cash-money home in the evenings. We still have some of these older invoice-forms for filling in hand-written stuff in case electricity breaks down.

Or did I completely misunderstand what you meant with "own box"?

[axgrindr]

I think you might be talking about an in-house dedicated server.
The dedicated server we have is in Texas, we are located in New Zealand.
A great example of why I love our new dedicated server: I had to change something in the php config file to allow larger uploads to the site. I went in and changed the file, then went my account web page and rebooted the server to pick up the changes. All of our sites on the server went down for a few seconds while it rebooted but it picked up the changes and we were back in business.
It felt great to be able to have that much control over our servers from the other side of the world.

[mack]

Hosting your own site can be good fun and a very powerful learning experience, but it it also an un-necessary inconvenience. I hoe done it in the past but there where reasons for hosting to host from home. In 99.9% of cases a hosting company is the way to go.

Mack.

[sgg24]

I'm siding with the hosting option. There's no point shelling out on all the hardware, because companies sometimes pay for traffic to be brought to their domain. This is done through a commission structure that means those who bring traffic - preferably relevant traffic - become most profitable.

Maybe it's worth starting a hosting company!

[Corey Bryant]

It really depends on your know how.

For example, we have a hosting company but we have to actually sell it because of a recent medical diagnosis so I won't be able to work as much any longer. So we are selling that part but we wil be keeping some of the servers. Because I can still maintain those. And having our own gives us some leeway over a few things from time to time.

Starting out - usually it is better to have shared hosting. And then maybe consider getting your own dedicated server later. Or course, you want to make sure that you have a company, like Hyperspin, to monitor your server to see if it goes down and then you might consider a management company to be able to reboot or take care of the server if you cannot.

-Corey

[QualityNonsense]

I used to work for a major UK company who host their websites in-house (without proper resources). Servers invariably go down outside of 9-5, meaning lost revenue, not to mention bewildered users wondering why these major sites would go offline for hours at a time.

Another former employer managed their dedicated server in house to save a few quid. A Windows 2000 Server update got overlooked and the box got hacked one weekend. Their site was replaced with a server full of hooky MP3s and MPEGs, to the horror of their elderly user base.

I'm sure you get where I'm going - hosting is best left to the professionals, IMHO.

[olimits7]

If you're starting out with a new ecommerce website I believe shared/dedicated hosting companies are the way to go.

However, I like the idea of hosting my own servers. I know this is expensive but it will be worth it if I ever get enough revenue to pay for it. The reason I would like to have my own servers is it would give me control over everything.

I think it would be a lot easier to tie the website database to a GUI customized software that could manage real-time inventory, real-time product adds (images/descriptions), order status, etc….and since the servers are in house I won't have to worry about uploading all that data to a hosting company server just so everything stays in sync. Especially if you have a lot of products to manage uploading over 200,000 images (thumbnails & larger images) takes forever. Everything would be centralized in 1 location making it easier to manage.

olimits7

[BananaFish]

You don't really want to put any serious ecommerce site on shared hosting unless you're an oscommerce bottom feeder. If you don't know much about the tech aspects, go with Yahoo Stores, Ebay Express or something like that.

[BananaFish]

Oh Yeah are there's a new one, Everest Ecommerce now has a monthly thing.

[lorax]

>> You don't really want to put any serious ecommerce site on shared hosting

Well.. I understand the sentiment here, but sometimes it's better to start on shared hosting until the shop owner get's his/her feet wet. If you're an experienced pro at it, yea, go get a dedicated server. But it's likely that someone who's just starting out doesn't have the experience, cash flow nor the tecnical ability to setup or maintain a dedicated server setup.

[gorgmd]

I know that even some companies of category 4 are outsourcing their hosting to professional companies (like akamai or something else), since having your whole server system in one giant building with megabandwidth etc. is not always the best option - especially global businesses are better off with synchronized servers in different areas that are capable of better withstanding the difficulties you face when working in a giant network. The problem is in most cases not your bandwidth connection but some traffic jam in the line between you and the user, so having the option to serve from different places is always good to improve your overall performance and to avoid downtimes.

For startups up to pretty big businesses it is always the best option to outsource the hosting. Having your own hosting does not give you any advantages you could not have with an outsourced solution, but gives you a lot of disadvantages including price. Just imagine

- the manpower
- costs for routine hardware exchange
- redundant eletrical supplies
- security against theft and forces of nature
- internet connection
- software updates
- patching of systems
- backup solutions (redundant everything of course)
- etc.

that will make you spending tremendous amounts of money. Here in Germany even the biggest high traffic sites do not have their own hosting but work with specialised hosting companies that meet the demands of such sites.

Having high quality hosting will cost you money - if you do it on your own or if you are outsourcing it.

Having low quality hosting will cost you even more, since you are paying with time your site is offline.

In my opinion the question is not whether to make it on your own but which company and services you chose for outsourcing, since outsourcing gives you a better level of service for the same price. You and your company should concentrate on your business rather than focussing on side aspects like this. If you are thinking about doing your own hosting, because you think you can save money by doing it on your own you should think about doing other things, too, like repairing your cars on your own or replacing ups or dhl by your own shipping service. Good luck! :-)