It’s not hard nowadays to get your own web host up and running in a restively short time, and it doesn’t even cost a lot of money in most cases. And while that’s fine for simple, personal projects, it’s a different story if you want to run a site with any commercial viability. It’s very important that you not only get a professional hosting service in that case, but that you also pay close attention to what they can actually do for you, and how much you’ll end up paying in the long run.
You’ll Be in Trouble if the Site Takes Off
Scalability is one of the main reasons people go with professional hosting providers. If you don’t want to find yourself scrambling to get things back up once you’ve been hit by a wave of incoming traffic, you should definitely work with a company that knows what they are doing. It’s not that easy to ensure that you’ll be able to deal with your new traffic volumes if you’re running everything on a simple computer at home. No matter how powerful it may be, it will still be far from what you can get from a dedicated hosting company, and it will be more expensive too. That’s without even factoring things like power costs and other similar additional expenses.
In the end, you might think that you’re saving money, but you’d be shooting yourself in the foot by trying to host a more complex site on your own server. Save yourself the trouble and make sure that the job is done properly by contracting the services of a professional company. At least there is no shortage of them on the market, and you’ll not have to search long to find one that can service you properly in your growth periods.
Security Is Entirely on You
When working with a professional hosting provider, they have a responsibility to keep their services secure from intruders. If you get hit by a DDoS attack, they should have systems in place to mitigate that. Things are far from pretty when you’re running your own solution though, and you’ll be responsible for every single aspect of your site’s security in that case. If something goes wrong, you don’t have anyone to hold responsible, and it’s all on you. And if you’re working with any sensitive information, it should go without saying that this can be a huge problem that can compromise your entire operation.
There are some tips online that can help you keep attackers at bay, but ultimately, unless you’re a security expert yourself, if someone is dedicated enough they will eventually find a way to break in. and that will create a situation that you may not even be able to recover from, no matter how much effort you put into it.
Installing Anything Can Be a Chore
When you’re working with a professional hosting provider, you’ll often have access to various one-click install features that can make it very easy to set up various kinds of websites. Things are far from so good when you’re running your own solution though, and even setting up something like cPanel can take several hours if you’re not prepared to deal with every aspect of the operation properly. And if you’re doing it for the first time, get ready for a really long ordeal that will be a true test for your nerves.
Of course, if you want to run some more specialized applications, it will still be a challenge to get them installed no matter how good your host is, but a professional company can at least help you out and guide you along the way, instead of having to do everything on your own.
In general, the ability to save time is one of the biggest reasons you’ll have for considering a dedicated hosting company, and if you value your time as much as any responsible entrepreneur does, you should realize that this is a major factor in how you’re going to set things up.
If all you need to do is run a simple small site for your own personal needs, then by all means host it on your own private machine at home. Just don’t be surprised if things go wrong and you have no recourse, and be prepared to get your hands dirty quite often. And for anything more complex than that, going with a professional host is the only solution you have available, anything other than that should be unacceptable. If not for you, then for the customers that will be visiting your site and potentially giving up their private information to it. They will definitely not be happy to know that you’re running things in a poorly organized, dangerous way that puts their information at risk.