I have an existing small static site with lunarpages which has worked great - no more than around 100 hits a day.
I am building a new site which might get 0 or 100k hits a day depending on how many people like it I’m not sure how I should host it though. I want to advertise it by posting on various forums but that will cause an initial surge in traffic that a shared hosting provider probably cant handle. However, I dont want to spend $100/month on a plan until the site is big enough to be worth it.
If you incrementally promote your site you can control the amount of visitors coming to it. If your site really starts taking off, then hold back on your promotions, get a VPS (virtual private server) and resume promotions.
Depending on how database, image or script heavy your site is, shared hosting can take quite a few hits before it starts slowing down, especially with all the load balancing technology of late. I had a friend over on Host Gator with a shared plan and he did a big social promotion and he had 40,000 uniques serge on his first day and the server never let up.
In the end I wouldn’t start upgrading equipment till you are sure you need it, but I’m guessing thats part of the reason why you posted the question:)
I believe first time you will not have very large amount of traffic and will be happy with your shared web hosting account. Soon as you start getting good amount of traffic you will get suggetion from your web hosting company or will ne able to move to VPS.
In any way that sceme will save your money. Because that is impossible to elaborate how long will it take for you to start getting such amount of traffic
Even their lowest plan, if you have it on 24 hours a day, 30 days a month, will run you more money than a reasonably priced VPS, and will include no bandwidth along with this cost (add another 15 cents / gb for bandwidth!). I would recommend starting with your existing shared hosting, and then if traffic picks up, make sure you have a VPS company lined up who can handle more usage than your shared hosting can. But you certainly don’t need to upgrade until you see some visitors.
I am building a new site which might get 0 or 100k hits a day depending on how many people like it
I suppose that was keyword posted here in your request. I suppose first time that would be small amount of visitors you will get.
In any case you estimate fast growth for your web site. In terms od usability and budget I recommend you check VPS solutions for this matter.
If you are expecting a HUGE burst of traffic initially then a VPS is probably what you want. It is nicely niched in between shared hosting and the all mighty expensive dedicated server hosting.
You can stay way under budget with a VPS as well. It is relatively cheap and is fast enough so load times will be quite quick which is VERY IMPORTANT so those initial visitors are lured to your site because it is FAST loading.
Best is always to get what you really need right now and then when you feel that your traffic is getting to be huge switch to cloud hosting or dedicated server
Thanks for the replies. After investigating VPS a bit more I think I will start there. However, I don’t really have a good feel for how big the site can get before even VPS becomes a problem.
Can anyone provide example stats for how many hits vs size of hardware required? Also, what would it take to survive a slashdot/reddit/etc?
However, I don’t really have a good feel for how big the site can get before even VPS becomes a problem.
I don’t think anyone can really tell you a set figure, as things depend a lot on both the type of site you have, how many objects (images, css files etc.) there are per page etc., what software you’re using for your server (if you employ nginx you can push a lot of static files, even with a small VPS).
If you think that your site can grow well, you should go with cloud hosting platform as you will need to pay for what you use, it will not be as expensive as you think. Some more cloud hosting plans are going to hit the market in couple of next days so you can also think about them in the future.
I’m not sure how I should host it though. I want to advertise it by posting on various forums but that will cause an initial surge in traffic that a shared hosting provider probably cant handle. However, I dont want to spend $100/month on a plan until the site is big enough to be worth it.