How should I host my client's websites

Hello, i’m starting as a web design freelancer, doing small websites with low traffic. Since I’m still starting, I do not want to have a reseller account.
So, I want to know if is it better to host multiple websites on one hosting account (addon Domains) or should each website get its own account?

Thanks

It should be the choice of the client how their site is hosted.
They may want to handle the hosting themselves, separate from the developer. However they may want you to sort it for them. Whether they want shared hosting, VPS or whatever will the their choice again.
Ask them what they want to do, if they don’t know or understand, explain to them, if they still don’t know, then you make the decision for them however you think is best.

I tend to leave everything like that to the client to manage. I will give them recommendations and help them set up their hosting account and domain name in their own name, and give them support if tbey run into difficulties at a later date. I launch their website and then they are in charge. I think hosting for them will only lead to a lot of headaches down the road.

3 Likes

Are you talking about hosting different clients into different addon domains under a hosting account that you control?

That’s probably a bad idea.

Each of your clients should probably have their own hosting account. Now if that specific client wants to have multiple websites then addon domains might be a cost effective solution.

Keep in mind, addon domains all share resources of their parent account and any other addon domains on the parent account. This essentially means that if one addon domain gets hacked or compromised (i.e. an extremely weak WordPress admin password) then all of the other addon domains under the parent account (and the parent account itself) would also become vulnerable.

You cannot completely isolate addon domains from each other.

If you are talking about multiple different clients having their own addon domain, then why should client2 have to pay for client1’s incompetence when client1 allows their website to be hacked or compromised?

But if you’re talking about the same client, if they let addon1 become hacked or compromised, which leads to addon2 being hacked or compromised, then this is just a natural progression of incompetence.

3 Likes

An alternate option is hosting the sites in the cloud. You could offer hosting services and manage everything yourself. This could be based on a subscription cost per website for each client. Furthermore, there are several cloud vendors that specialize in hosting specific platforms. So depending on the platform you intend on using to build most of these websites that might be a smart solution. Otherwise you will need to configure each virtual server instance yourself per website. Shared hosting companies will not allow you to install software on their server, and resources on the server are shared between all websites hosted on the server. In the cloud none of these limitations exist.

Cloud hosting (definition of what cloud hosting is really varies, that’s problem number one) can really be over kill in these situations.

If you know for a fact that the website is going to have a lot of visitors and be real resource intensive, then a scaleable cloud hosting platform might work (or just a dedicated server). Otherwise, a shared hosting account or a hosting account from within a reseller account will likely suffice.

I think with small website you should use hosting will be more reasonable. If you want more Domains addon then should use VPS. TKS

You can go with VPS hosting if not reseller hosting. Do check out Scopehosts, Godaddy and Hostgator for best VPS hosting service.

As the OP has never returned, it seems pointless to continue to offer advice.

Thread closed. Thanks to those who contributed.