Is it worth it to host your own website?
Hosting comprises one of the chief costs of running and maintaining a website, once it’s been built. Because of this, many clients wonder if they could save money by hosting their website themselves. Surely taking it in-house is the more affordable option, right?
Sadly, no. Hosting your own website is a bad idea. Here are the top reasons why.
1. You need modern hardware.
You weren’t thinking about putting your website on a spare, old computer, were you? If you want to host your own website, you’ll need a model with enough processing power and memory to keep up with the demands of a modern web server. Which, speaking of: you’ll need the latest webserver software, and you’ll need to know how to use it.
Maybe you or someone in your company knows how to do this, but even so you’ll run into additional problems…
2. You’ll need to upgrade your bandwidth.
Your current Internet connection works well for your office, but once you add on the traffic from everyone out on the web trying to access your website, you’ll soon run out of bandwidth. Many ISPs don’t allow you to host on a consumer-grade connection, so you may need to switch providers. And that connection upgrade will eat into a great deal of the costs you hope to save by hosting yourself.
3. You’d need to guarantee reliability.
What happens with the power goes out in your building? Or your server goes down and needs to be repaired? All of this results in down time for your website: your visitors won’t be able to access the information they need, and you’ll take a professional hit. Is the potential loss of business worth it? (Answer: no.)
4. Energy costs.
Keep in mind, in order for your website to stay online, you need to have your servers running 24/7. That energy ads up, and the bigger your servers the larger the bill. So what with the cost of upgraded hardware and software, upgraded bandwidth, potential business loss should you lose power, and energy to keep the whole thing running, why does this seem like a good idea?
Hosting your own website is a waste of time, energy, and money.
We’re not shy of making strong statements, and this is one of them: do not host your own website, it is a bad idea. Instead, accept hosting as one of the costs of doing business, and leave it in the hands of a reliable and dedicated provider. A good hosting company has people working around the clock to maintain your website, and will be there to help you if you encounter any problems.
Want to know how to find a good web host? Stay tuned! We’ll tackle that issue in our next post.