How much should Web Hosting cost?
Thu, 01/13/2011 - 10:26am
I'm using a subscription service called Bandzoogle that's really easy to use but costs $20 per month. I'm wondering if I'm paying way too much. Do other people use similar services at a cheaper price, and if so, what are they?
Wed, 01/19/2011 - 6:11pm
#2
It depends.
This is sorta a complicated question. How much should web hosting cost? is inextricably tied into:
"What do I want my site to *do*?"
&
"How much responsibility do I want?"
I could make a wordpress.com, drupalgardens.com, buzzr.com, or squarespace.com site for free, and then purchase the custom domain package for around $10/month. With that setup, you get limited control over the site, a graphical interface for laying things out, a few pluggable items like galleries, etc.. and someone else takes care of most of the tech. There are limitations, but it works for a lot of people, especially when coupled with other nice lightweight tools like google groups as announce lists, google forms or wu-foo for collecting information, etc, and maybe something like bandcamp for commerce. (Though I don't like bandcamp anymore)
In reality.. groups of people should all be hosted at the same place on a virtual machine, and split the cost, say 10 people going in on a $30/month machine, pay $10, and giving the $70 to someone to lightly administer it.
I've had a good ride with Dreamhost @ $8/month, but wouldn't think of putting a database driven application like Drupal on it. I would serve HTML pages, and maybe Wordpress.
I've also heard ok things about hostgator.
I've been using Hostbaby for eight years and it's $20 a month. http://www.hostbaby.com/pricing I've never bothered to see if I could save 5 or 10 dollars by switching. At this point it's customer loyalty or something. I use DreamHost for Sidewalk...it's a bit less, but we pay by the year to save $.
So yeah, you can probably find something a bit cheaper. I have no idea if sites like this muscle out some good, reliable small web hosting companies, but it's a start:
http://www.Top-10-Web-Hosting.com/