When you're on a tight budget, as most startups are, it is important to squeeze as much goodness as possible from the money you have. There are some things you can't be too cheap about though, and this short guide should hopefully give you a few things to think about.
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Setting Realistic Goals and Reasonable Expectations
This is probably the last thing anyone wants to hear when they are so excited and eager to get their product or service ready for that big day when it all goes live, but it's an important point. It would be nice to think that whatever your new idea is will suddenly go viral and have the whole world beating a path to your website. This probably won't happen though, at least not right away, so you may want to put off renting a whole room full of servers and keep your hosting plan at a reasonable level for now.
Dedicated Hosting
Having a dedicated server gives you much more freedom and power to do what you want, and extra security, but it comes at a price. The cost of hardware and bandwidth is coming down though, so you may be able to fit this in to your budget.
Pros:
- Nobody else to share server resources with.
- More options to customise to your needs.
- More access to storage space and hardware upgrades.
- Better security.
- Easier to scale up.
Cons:
- It costs more than shared or VPS.
Shared Hosting
In the past, shared hosting was basically the only starting point to get your website online because the cost of a dedicated server was drastically higher. It is still a good starting point, and a VPS (virtual private server) from a provider such as bestwebhosting.co.uk is even better.
Pros:
- It's cheap, so you can take your time without rushing to go live and make sales.
- Very little (or no) knowledge of servers required.
Cons:
- You're sharing the server resources with others.
- Generally less secure than dedicated servers.
- Not as much room to move.
Planning for the Future
If you are serious about doing whatever it is that you're doing, then there is a good chance that you will need a dedicated server (or more than one) at some point in the future. Although it shouldn't be too difficult to switch from shared to dedicated at a later date it could still bring up a few minor issues. These issues can usually all be solved by competent hosting support at the provider you are moving to, so there is no reason to worry about moving from shared to dedicated. If you have regular backups, and a seamless method to transfer over to the new provider without downtime then you should be fine.
At the end of the day, the decision to use dedicated or shared hosting comes down to finances and other personal situations such as how soon you think you will need more bandwidth and resources to cater to your new customers and users. Don't lose sight of your current situation while dreaming about your millionth customer though.
