Shared hosting or VPS for a small new community?

[NinaStanton]

Hi everyone, I'm brand new here and evaluating XenForo for a small community I'd like to start (a few hundred members at most to begin with).

For those of you who self-host: is shared hosting enough at that size, or is a VPS the safer starting point? I don't have server admin experience, so I'm trying to understand what I'd actually be signing up for in terms of setup and maintenance.

Thanks in advance!

 

[JustinHawk]

Hi everyone, I'm brand new here and evaluating XenForo for a small community I'd like to start (a few hundred members at most to begin with).

For those of you who self-host: is shared hosting enough at that size, or is a VPS the safer starting point? I don't have server admin experience, so I'm trying to understand what I'd actually be signing up for in terms of setup and maintenance.

Thanks in advance!

Go with xenforo cloud https://xenforo.com/purchase/

 

[Mr. Jinx]

If you:

• don't have server admin experience and have the money -> Xenforo Cloud
• don't have server admin experience and not much money to spend -> Shared hosting
• have server admin experience and time -> VPS

 

[smallwheels]

For those of you who self-host: is shared hosting enough at that size, or is a VPS the safer starting point?

Shared hosting is ok as a starting point for a small forum. Way less complex to deal with than a VPS and cheaper, too. I started my forum on shared hosting four years ago and had until now no issues with it (currently grown to >4.500 members / ~55.000 Posts).

There are some things to be aware of:

• you cannot install the enhanced search add on on shared hosting, so you should not buy it in the first place. Enhanced search is vastly better than the standard search, however, on a small forum standard search is good enough.
• your options regarding bot fighting (which has become the biggest issue for a forum today) are somewhat limited on shared hosting as you cannot configure firewalls etc.. Again, not a huge drama: You can either use Cloudflare or make use of several XF add ons that help with fighting bots.

The huge benefit of shared hosting is that all you have to care for is the forum itself and the XF software. Not the operating system and all the other server related tasks. Depending from your needs even the backup that the hoster (hopefully) does may be good enough. Shared hosting really saves a ton of time and if you don't have server experience you can focus your learning curve on XF exclusively which will clearly benefit your forum and will be good for your nerves, too.

I'm currently in the process of switching to a VPS, mainly due to better options in terms of fighting bots and scrapers and for a few other needs and ideas that evolved over time. In absolute terms shared hosting would still be sufficient for my forum and regarding perfoemance still acceptable. In fact still brilliant if I had less add ons installed. Just don't go for the cheapest low-powered hosting but rather for a somewhat decent one.

 

[Wildcat Media]

@NinaStanton it would help to know your budget. I can run less busy forums on a VPS, and there are probably a few out there which are "managed" in that someone takes care of some of the server duties.

I don't use XenForo Cloud but given the price, it's a turnkey solution and they take care of keeping their servers and XF (with its official add-ons) up to date. It saves you buying the license and renewals (but keep in mind, if you are not doing frequent upgrades, you sometimes can get away with renewing the license only when needed, as opposed to renewing it every year).

 

[Alvin63]

You could start with shared hosting and see if it’s enough in time - you can always upgrade. Depends on your budget- if you can afford it Xenforo Cloud is managed.

If no server experience then VPS would need to be a managed service - that will cost more than shared hosting.

Main thing is to use email from somewhere else, not the shared hosting provider - to avoid origin IP leak. Although that varies as my previous server outsourced their email so it didn’t show the origin IP anyway.

 

[Alvin63]

Matt W services (well known on here) does shared and managed vps services I think if Xenforo Cloud is over budget.

It’s not just the number of members but the type of content. I have just over 1000 members and plenty of room to expand on shared hosting despite the site being fairly image heavy. But my plan has plenty of inodes so I don’t need to offload images.