Comment to 'Self-hosting - Why not?'
Comment to Self-hosting - Why not?

  • Hello,

    No, you're not alone. I've also been "self-hosting" for more than ten years now with a more powerful PC and it is OK.

    Every one is talking / writing about server spec and internet speed and how to configure web server but no one mentioned the space on hdd (or ssd this days) which is very important when seeking out for a cheap hosting...

    I am still running D7 site which is now aprox. 81GB in size. Can you find me a host provider who is willing to give you ~100GB of space for a small price?? No one will even talk with you, not to mention how to transfer it over FTP 😏 

    On my self-managed web server (LAMP)  I host "a lot" ( aprox. 10 other domains mostly using wordpress) and jet my "top" command returns very low resource use.

    For those who knows what "top" is:

    top - 22:38:34 up 56 days,  2:10,  3 users,  load average: 0.83, 1.10, 1.80

    Tasks: 488 total,   1 running, 403 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie

    %Cpu(s):  7.1 us,  0.5 sy,  0.0 ni, 90.9 id,  0.9 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.6 si,  0.0 st

    KiB Mem : 32608884 total,   357928 free,  8982840 used, 23268116 buff/cache

    KiB Swap:  2531324 total,  2531324 free,        0 used. 22843308 avail Mem

    One just need to start with and it pays off. But you need to like working with this stuff....

    My conclusion is: self hosting is OK!

    • In Australia it doesn’t work out any cheaper to self-host, hence I’m biased.

      You can get a 160GB ssd server from Linode for $45 with off-server backups with 40GBps/5000MBps/5TB transfer. That’s likely to handle about 30-50 online users. To be able to handle 30-50 online users self hosted and have backups in place you’d need to allocate a machine with 160GB SSD, permanently connected with at least 100Mbps uplink and unlimited bandwidth. Here in Au we have horrible situation with ISPs, so something like that would cost at least $100/mo. The server may be just $200-$300 to buy, plus energy cost, failover and backups - maybe $500 outright and it‘Lo last a few years. You may or may not be able to use your own computer for this - depends on whether you are OK with the site slowing down when you use photoshop. Also, here the internet is often congested around peak hours (Netflix hour) - may be an issue in your case as well.

      So, all that overhead adds up and at least from here I couldn’t ever see self-hosting as a viable option. Its likely to be very different in other countries or in situations where webmaster already has multiple machines, backup storage and unlimited internet with good link anyhow.

      • Hi Andrew,
        I have dedicated "allocated machine" for the web server (LAMP) and it is running very well. No Photoshop on Linux 😈 

        No problem with ISP's in Slovenia  - we have unlimited bandwidth and on a private line (getting fibre-optic this days) so there is no problem with "internet  often congested around peak hours". Power is stable  maybe 1-2 outages per year or not even that. Normally outages are scheduled maintenance  - and my small UPS can handle that.

        Small machine (old server used for backup all of the data 😀 and as a MySQL replica server )

        Every month at least $45 for Linode - hell no!

        • Sounds like heaven on earth! Like I said, it's totally feasible for some situations. Just not here... in fact it looks like most of the Australia is about to be burnt to ashes... servers and all. Definitely hosting elsewhere. 😫