I've been toying with the idea of hosting a website for me and my friends to drop our tidbits of... well basically just interesting stuff we want to share. So it's only going to be a small amount of traffic. MyBB seems like a good (and easy) way of doing this.
So here's my question: Do I use an old desktop I've got stood around under my desk and don't use any more, or do I go and grab one of those "
Free if you pay us x amount of money!" services?
How many people are we talking? And, how active do you expect them to be. And, do you want to actually host the stuff or just link to it?
Renting a host is more sufficient. Everything is set up for you with reliable servers and fast internet speeds.
You can definitely share, that's how I started. I still manage several websites for friends & family on my shared hosting plan while I have dedicated servers for my own.
1and1 is decent, but you should probably go with Hawkhost. 1and1 is fine when you don't need any of their help. DNS updates are extremely slow as well.
Valcato is great and affordable. Never had a problem in a couple years of using them. Their average ticket response is under 2 hours and the servers are blazing fast!
Thanks for the tips guys! Also sorry for the long silence, had a lot to do these past days.
@Alex I only expect ~15-20 people using the site. Not sure how that translates to usage strain.
You may be able to get away with hosting it yourself or even a free host. But, paid will always(well good ones) make life easier in the long run
.
(2013-06-06, 05:14 PM)NonSenseMan Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks for the tips guys! Also sorry for the long silence, had a lot to do these past days.
@Alex I only expect ~15-20 people using the site. Not sure how that translates to usage strain.
What is your monthly budget? With that many visitors your best bet would be to go with a shared hosting provider, this will save you a lot of money in a long run and should be able to fit your website in for a long while (depending on your growth rate).
At Arvixe.com we offer a free domain with every package starting at $5.60 per month when using the mybb coupon (in signature). We also don't place any limits on your bandwidth & disk space giving you plenty of room to grow.
I simply don't see a reason that you should host by yourself. There are many web hosts online that are relatively inexpensive, can easily handle your requirements (15-20 users is pretty much nothing), and your forum could be online within minutes after ordering.
Hosting through your home network is a hassle and unnecessary when there are so many available resources built specifically for your goal.
Good luck in finding the right host!
It'd be more inexpensive if you went through a shared hosting route instead of a personal server (i.e. energy costs, worrying about physical hardware and possible scenarios, security threats - being realistic here, and etc.). I'd recommend either ASmallOrange for budget friendly purposes and handling small volume of traffic.