Hello, thanks for taking the time to read this post - I appreciate any feedback. I have been learning coldfusion for the last 2 years and would consider my skills in the intermediate level. I have no other previous programming/server experience. I'm an internet marketer by profession and I wanted to learn coldfusion to become independent in my web/marketing businesses (building affiliate sites, ppc landing pages, reporting, etc). I currently run coldfusion powered websites for 6 clients and host their sites on shared servers at crystaltech. I want to break free from the limitations of shared hosting and learn how to run/manage my own coldfusion server, email server, db. I plan on purchasing a standard license of cf8 and running it on whatever hosting environment I choose.. but I'm having trouble deciding (or knowing) what the best environment should be. As this list is full of folks who run coldfusion servers, I'm looking for some advice on what my best move is... I want to take advantage of as much open source technology as possible I have a ton of question but I guess my most basic ones are: 1. Dedicated server vs. VPS? Can anyone shed light on advantages/disadvantages of either? 2. Apache vs. IIS? - I'm a huge fan of open source especially a LAMP set-up... But for me learning php is not an option (since I've been learning cf for 2 years). I like the fact that I can run cf on Apache and seems that would lower my costs in the future with more projects. Is one easier to learn/run than the other? Is there any major disadvantages of running cf on apache? 3. What environments you all run your site on? How did you get started and what would you recommend? Thanks everyone! Steev