Hosting your website off your home PC. Is a personal web server a good idea? |
  (0 rating, 4 votes) Loading ... |
I’m willing to bet that when you started your first website you got the idea, at least once, to save money by hosting your website on your home PC and internet connection. Starting a personal web server to host your website of your home computer has always been an interesting idea to me…but is it a good idea?
Be prepared to learn a lot!
If you really want to go through with starting a web server on your own you better be prepared to learn a lot and also spend a lot of time testing. In all honesty, if you know nothing about web servers I highly suggest you give up and go with a cheap but reputable web hosting service.
A headache and a half!
When I first setup a personal web server at my house it took me roughly 2 weeks to figure everything out like installing Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, configuring PHP to work with MySQL, etc. I cannot tell you how many times during those 2 weeks I was tempted to throw my server out the window and say to hell with it.
Your ISP might not be equipped to host a website from.
Even if you have the fastest DSL or cable connection you might not have enough power to host your own website. When running a web server, download speed is not important at all. The main factor to serving out fast web pages is your connections’ upload speed. The fact is that cable and DSL usually have crappy upload speed and throughput. Not only that but some ISPs even have clauses in their terms of service that customers are not allowed to host websites from their home connection.
The cost of leaving your computer on 24 hours a day.
Even though I stopped using my home server a long time ago, I still leave on my personal computer 24 hours a day. I have calculated that leaving one computer on 24 hours a day costs roughly $20/month (depending on your computer specs). So if you are used to leaving your computer running 12 hours a day, you will be pumping out an extra $10/m just to host it yourself.
Other factors may hinder you -
If you are behind a router you will find it even more difficult to setup a web server. Another thing that doesn’t come with a home web server is an experienced server administrator. You risk getting your computer hacked into if you don’t work on security.
The fact is: it’s cheaper to go with a professional web hosting service.
Let’s do some simple calculations here. Plan to spend atleast 40 hours working to get your server setup and configured properly. We take 40 hours x $7 (minimum wage) – $280. Now lets add in the extra $10/m it will cost to pay for the extra electricity being used by your computer that is now on 24/7.
So to run your own web server from home you are looking at paying $10/m + $280 for the time you spent figuring it all out.
Now lets use a plan from my web hosting company as an example:
For $6.95/m you get a web hosting plan that can provide way more than your personal computer could – 15GB disk space, 200GB bandwidth, and support for any scripting languages you could need. Not to mention your home computer won’t be able to stand up to a professionals’ hardware.
As you can see, hosting your website from a home web server is actually quite difficult to do. It takes a lot of skill and experience to configure the required services that a web server needs. Not only is it difficult to do, but it also costs more money to do it yourself. A cheap web hosting service can provide you a better service for a cheaper rate than you could do with your own setup.
Feb 26th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I completely agree, the power costs of running a machine at home alone exceeds web hosting costs.
Mar 5th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Say you had a T1 connection at work and can use that. You also don’t have to pay for the electricity since the computer will be at work. Isn’t it cheaper then for you (not for your employer, I’m sure), especially if you will be streaming videos and need lots of space?
Mar 5th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I’m not convinced a t1 has enough power to handle it unless you have a really small website. Even more so when your co-workers are online uploading.
Then you have to worry about how your work configured their network. It’s likely that they have certain ports blocked to prevent users from doing exactly what you want to do.
Mar 7th, 2009 at 7:34 am
There’s a lot of effort that goes into building a web server, sit down and do the math why would you want to waste that time when you can buy the same for $10 a month with little hassle.
Mar 16th, 2009 at 2:23 am
Hosting a website from your personal PC, that’s just not practical at all … clearly a waste of time, money, energy (you put into arrangements), etc.
Mar 19th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
I agree with you. it’s cheaper to go with a professional web hosting service. I am not a genius on web hosting tech. Throwing this work to web hosting company will save you more time to do the things you are good at. I do not care those money that is spent on web hosting. It is worthwhile.
Mar 23rd, 2009 at 10:16 pm
In most cultures that would be called “stealing”. What kind of liabilities would you be exposing your employer to by plugging in a rouge server? What kind of liabilities are you opening yourself up to? Would you be prepared to lose both your career and your server for pulling such an asinine stunt?
Running a server on your home connection does have it’s merits, especially if there is negligible traffic. For a start-up with a new idea – it could be the ideal answer when paired with a dynamic dns system. Costs would be kept to a minimum, and development and testing could be done locally – increasing productivity. The ability to customize server software with only whats needed for you results in a more responsive system – almost negating the typical slower upload speeds.
Your ISP service agreement rules supreme – if they say “no servers”, that’s what they mean. If they dont address it specifically – then have a go at it – but be prepared to move up the hosting ladder when the time comes.
Apr 1st, 2009 at 5:48 pm
The cost of leaving your computer all 24 hours long are at least twice as much expensive as the one of the best hostgator baby croc package. it was just an example.. because that is I use now. But almost every webhosting company has a plan cheaper and better than the solution of keeping the website in your computer. Not mention the protection you have on big companies hosting, not mention the noise of your computer, the heat that can produce, and many, many more impediments.
Apr 10th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I believe Google will buy go daddy, it is extremely cheap web hosting.
They have a lot to offer, and they are really the only web hosting online that can market themselves on such a grand scale.
Thanks,
May 19th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
LOL I have already tried it in the past… when i was starting business… My ISP soon found out and warned me it was against their rules bla bla.. but anyways my upload speed was kinda too slow and had many downtimes.
Jun 1st, 2009 at 12:29 am
Wow, I never thought it would be that expensive to run your own hosting from your computer. I have always wondered if this was an option, but now I know it isn’t really worth it. Thanks!
Jun 26th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Awesome!! that is a useful information to have my own website in my home pc. Most of us are thinking as web hosting can be done in a high end computer with high bandwidth internet connection, this information is a most welcome for the people who try for the web hosting option. Great..thanks.
Jun 27th, 2009 at 10:41 am
yes its quite difficult 1st you need a better configuration of hardware and good cooling like a server at 21 degree…and good adsl or T1 isp lines well its quite expensive..then a dedicated IP and server operating system need to configure IIS..then if you need data base need to install in your server sounds little tuf..and the investment is more its better to for for a hosting provider well a end user or a VPS..
Jul 2nd, 2009 at 8:23 am
With a good little NAS like a QNAP (models TS109 II, TS-109 Pro II, TS-209 II, TS-209 Pro II, TS-119, TS-219, or TS-219P) you get a built in web server running PHP, MySQL, and Apache with easy to configure interfaces.
Couple one of these with everyDNS’ free dynamic DNS services and you have a very cheap solution to home hosting, without the headaches of installing and configuring everything.
A NAS like this only uses 30W of power and can be left running 24/7 at a fraction of the cost of running your standard PC, which blows the expense theories above right out of the water.
And you get the added bonus of a nice media server etc for streaming files around your home, and network storage solutions all thrown in!
Security is still going to be an issue however…
Jul 9th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I do host several sites from my home computer. I also have some sites on a shared server elsewhere. The control and access I have on the home server is great because I can experiment with various integrations and technologies. Something I can’t do with the shared server. But the upload speed is a problem. Until a decent uplink is available at home the only real options for me, who wants total control of the server, are colocation or dedicated server. Both are expensive.
Jul 9th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
PS – Running my home AMD64 Linux machine 24/7 only costs me about three to four dollars a month for electricity so that’s not an issue as some have implied.
Jul 23rd, 2009 at 8:42 am
I agree to the fact that hosting website on pc is a bad idea but can be good if you want to demonstrate somebody the site you made without having to spend a penny.
Anyways you can check the guide at this link which provides information like how to configure apache, modem, dynamic dns, mysql etc.
Here’s the link: Host website on pc
Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:29 am
Ok im not starting a host from my home. Thats for sure. I was thinking about it, but it is clear I just dont have the power for it.
Aug 18th, 2009 at 12:19 am
Hey Dan,
Some time back, I thought of starting a personal web server but thank God, I did not take a plunge. Since I am a non-technical netizen, I agree with you completely that I should better rely on the services of my web host (LimeDomains).
I’m happy with their services and affordable prices.