Hi, does anyone here host their own sites? If so, can you answer some questions: what's the startup cost(software, whatever else you need)? Is there a monthly fee? How much programming knowledge do you need? Thanx
I'm going to assume you're talking about an actual physical server and not a VPS or shared hosting. You can either rent a server or build your own and colocate it. The price of this vary depending on the company, the amount of BW and other factors. As for software, you can use linux which is free. You can also use free panels to save on the monthly cost. Depending on the site you may not need any programming at all. IE if you're just going to host a blog you can use wordpress.
I think what you're describing is either a VPS or Dedicated server. Yes, many people have their own server that they manage themselves instead of using shared hosting. Kloxo or Cpanel can make this easier, especially if your experience is limited. You shouldn't need any programming knowledge in order to run your own server, but some server management experience is very handy.
I think you need to make sure you need to buy your own server. Having shared web hosting account or even VPS would be less excpensive for you in any case
I agree with the above sentiment. If you want to study real server management (its really really handy in many cases) then you should go with a VPS. Why not rent a real cheap one and one that you can easily reformat and study it. But if you go with a highend panel, it really makes your life easy.
You may also learn on the road, but it takes time, money and dedication. Hand-on server is a good way to learning though.
It's also important to secure and harden your server properly. If the OP doesn't have any knowledge in this field, he should look at a managed dedicated server to save him headaches.
Start up as a reseller if you dont have server management knowledge. you will need a budget of abt $35-50/month to provide quality hosting services. you can get cPanel control panel in the above said budget, it is the best one in hosting industry. you will also need WHMCS billing and support system.
We build our own servers and send them out to colo at a datacenter. A good amount of linux knowledge is a must.
Unless you have solid knowledge of things, just stay away and let pros handle it instead. Often it is much cheaper to just rent what you need on a monthly, quraterly or yearly basis. Saves you a lot of hassles and other troubles as well.
I host my own websites but I think its more of a matter whether you really need to or not. If you can get away with shared hosting then this would be the cheapest option the next step being VPS. The beauty with dedicated is that you can host as many websites as you want. A good dedicated server you would be looking at least £100 a month. If you go for a dedicated option then you need to keep in mind that updates and server maintenance would have to be carried out by yourself which can be difficult if you know nothing about dedicated servers. I would suggest ordering cpanel which makes life easier.