Self hosting Vs. shared hosting Vs. using existing publishing platforms

1

So… I currently use Alwaysdata to host a blog, a RSS reader and some other little stuff.

The problem is I live in Asia, Alwaysdata servers are in Europe, so creating blog posts and uploading pictures on my blog are a bit of a hassle. Plus I’m using a shared hosting solution, which means I pay around 10 USD a month for this, but I think it’s a bit expensive for what I’m doing with it.

I’m now thinking about what I should do:

  • Self hosting using my own server
    • You own your data
    • You can configure the server to match exactly what you need (if I want PHP, Python, PostGreSQL or MySQL, Apache or NginX, etc.)
    • Geographically close to me (like, in my living room!) so fast access for me
    • A hassle to setup and maintain
    • I am not a sysadmin, my config might lead to security leaks
    • If my own Itnernet connection stops, I lose access to everything
  • Self hosting using a NAS
    • You own your data
    • Easy to configure and to maintain (it’s a NAS so the data is safer than on a homemade server)
    • No real tweaking allowed: you can use the proposed blogging platform for instance, not another one
  • Shared hosting
    • High availability
    • Customer support (seriously, at Alwaysdata they answered all my questions within 20 minutes so far, really impressive!)
    • Can be pricey especially if you need specific options (PHP and Python instances, different databases, etc.)
  • Using existing publishing platform (i.e. Wordpress.com)
    • Super easy to set up
    • Very high availability
    • Free
    • No control on your data
    • Limitations (amount of pictures you can post, etc.)
    • Absolutely no way to tweak anything, and cannot be used for anything other than publishing articles since this is not a server.
  • … something else?

I’ve stumbled upon the IndieHosters project this morning, which is something in between Shared hosting and existing publishing platform, which is cool but means I cannot use it to deploy the tools I would like to.

What do you people think? Any idea or recommendation? I was also looking at Gandi since they recently opened a branch in Taiwan, but their shared hosting is limited to one programming language. I would like to have the possibility to use both PHP (cause a lot of webapps use this) and Python (cause this is what I would like to use for my webapps).

And once again, it would be to host a few little projects, not a huge website with hundreds of thousands of users.

Thanks in advance!

2

I faced a similar set of challenges a while back. I run a bunch of wordpress sites, but also wanted to have the freedom and flexibility to run other stuff. I didn’t want to go the cloud route for fear of getting Slashdotted and then running out of money.

I went for a VPS with a2hosting and they are awesome. Great value for money, solid performance, and never had an issue with them.

3

Thanks for the feedback Jono. I checked and it’sroughly the same cost as Alwaysdata… I have to keep thinking on what I want to do next.

4

Also checkout the options on https://www.digitalocean.com/

1 Like
5

I note that, as @jonobacon suggests, you’ve missed out one option, which is to get a virtual machine (or “VPS”); a server with which you can do what you like, but it’s a machine provided to you by someone else. A2hosting, Bytemark, digital ocean, and the like provide this, and there will be someone nearer to you. This has the disadvantages of being a sysadmin (you have to administer it!), but also the advantages of shared hosting (high availability, etc) and without the prices (you pay for a server; after that you can do what you like with it).

6

I think Alwaysdata is a kind of VPS but I’m not entirely sure…

I’ll check the different options you propose, thanks for those Stuart!

This morning I activated my NAS’ web service and put a few HTML pages there with photos. Then, from another location I hit both these pages and the same pages on my Alwaysdata server, and on my NAS it’s 4-5 times faster. I also asked friends in Japan to do the same and the result was about the same, so I’m wondering if the NAS solution might not be a good one… (I don’t have a multi-billion-views-per-month blog or anything like that, so it could work…)

7

Digitial Ocean aint bad. Of course, I don’t see why more people don’t just bite down and go Amazon.

8

Thanks for the feedback.

Any opinion on OVH? They’re quite big in France, and their offer is pretty cheap (I see 1.99 €/month for a basic VPS)