Rent or Buy your own Web Server?

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Rent or Buy your own Web Server?

Renting space on a shared public Web Server

Many ISP provide rental space on a server connected directly into the Internet through their backbone connection.

Pros:

This is usually the cheapest route to go - on the order of $20 - $60 US per month flat rate
The ISP handles all Web Server maintenence and upkeep!
You get about 10 megabytes of storage for your Web Site files
You get your own account on the server machine with other niceties like E-Mail, FTP, and USENET access.

Cons:

You don't get a nice, simple HTTP name to pass on to friends, customers or family.You share the Univeral Resource Locator name of the ISP! It's going to be something like http://www.ISP.com/~yourlogin_name/.
You share the server hardware with every other Web Server, E-Mail sender, Usenet reader and regular ISP user running on the machine. If there are alot of people visiting another Web site on this same machine or logging into their personal accounts to do non-Web related stuff, it will slow down access to your Web Site.

Renting your own Virtual Web Server

Many ISP provide rental space on a Web Sites Only-server connected directly into the Internet through their backbone connection.

Pros:

You get your own nice, simple HTTP (Domain) name to pass on to friends, customers or family! It's registered (costs you $150 US) with InterNIC and belongs to you.
The ISP handles all the upkeep and maintenence of the Web Server!
You get your own account on the server machine with other niceties like E-Mail and FTP to help support your site.

Cons:

It's definitely more expensive. It'll run you on the order of $125 - $250 US per month. In addition, most ISPs monitor the traffic generated by your Virtual Web Site and charge on that as well. The more traffic or visits to your site (which is good - expressed interest!) the more you pay per month. It's in the range of $10 - $20 US per 300 MBytes over a standard 1000 MBytes transfer per month.
You get about 10 megabytes of storage for your Web Site files. For most people or business, this is probably enough for a long time. But, if you need to add large graphics, video, or audio files in the future, you'll pay on the order of $5 US per 10 MB per month.
You share the server hardware with every other Web Server running on the machine. If there are alot of people visiting another Web site on this same machine it will slow down access to your Web Site.

Buying and maintaining your own Web Server

Many ISP provide 24 hour rental connection directly into the Internet through their backbone connection for a Web Server you keep at home or at your place of business.

Pros:

Everything about the Web Server is in your hands!
You get whatever storage you want to buy for the Web Server hardware platfrom!
You get your own nice, simple HTTP (Domain) name to pass on to friends, customers or family! It's registered (costs you $150 US) with InterNIC and belongs to you.
The ISP can hook you into the Domain Name System of the Internet so people can find your Web Server by its HTTP (Domain) name.
You set up and activate whatever you want on your Web Server - like E-Mail, FTP, and USENET access.

Cons:

Everything about the Web Server is in your hands!
You are responsible for all upkeep and maintenance of the Web Server!
You can expect to pay on the order of $500 - $1000 per month for the access into the Internet backbone.
You can expect to pay on the order a one-time cost of $2000 - $4000 US for a Web Server platform depending on the redundancy and backup strategies you choose.