When you’re pricing out hosting plans, it can get frustrating to comparison shop. One host might offer all of the services you need (and even some you don’t) and be priced out of your budget, while another will be more affordable, but end up lacking a lot of the features you want. As a result, a lot of site owners end up asking themselves whether or not they really, honestly need a hosting company.
If you’re asking yourself this question, then there are a couple of other questions you need to ask yourself before you decide to make the leap into self-hosting your site. For one, do you have the money to lay out for a server? Servers can cost a lot of money, and that’s just for the hardware alone. Software will end up running you still more money, unless you use all open source programs. Even then, if you have an e-commerce or other business website, you may have to pay for the business versions of software you’d otherwise get for free. Instead, why not look at one of HostGator’s plans? They have a lot of plans from shared servers to dedicated servers, so you can get all of the resources you need for less than it would cost to buy your own server.
If you have the money for your own server, you need to ask yourself whether or not you have the time and expertise to operate it. Have you run a server by yourself before? You’ll have to act as your own technical support if you do, and nobody will be there to walk you through things like installations and software conflicts. If you choose a shared server plan or fully-managed hosting plan through HostGator, that’s not a concern. The cost of managing your server is factored into your monthly fee, so it doesn’t matter if you have the time, energy, and know-how to handle it yourself or not.
If you have the money for your own server and have some experience managing one, you have to look at the ongoing issues that come with having a server. Will you be able to keep your server secure, virus-free, and powered? Servers have a lot of added costs, like electricity, internet access, subscriptions to antivirus software, and other things that aren’t factored into its initial price. If you aren’t prepared to pay for all of these things on a regular basis, it may be a wiser decision to go for a monthly plan through HostGator. They have hosting plans starting from less than $4, which is far less than you’d end up paying to set up and maintain your own server.
Having your own server gives you some advantages, like all of the disk space, bandwidth, and CPU power you could possibly need. However, ninety nine percent of website owners will do better to get a hosting plan through a company like HostGator. HostGator pays for the cost of their servers, electricity, and other overhead charges, as well as the time and effort of maintaining their servers. You’ll end up saving money, and you won’t have any of the headaches that come with maintaining a server by yourself.