Buy a Server or scope one out?

In the middle of Jan, my client is launching a massive dating site. Original idea, etc. I have a feeling with the amount of money and time that has gone in to the back end. It's going to go viral & huge within a matter of days.

What I am wondering, is should he go for a server account or should he, since he is going all out to go buy some servers?

Thoughts would be appreciated.

First i would just set him up with a regular shared server. I would use hostdime, hostgator, or hostwinds for the server.

Reason i would started with a regular shared server is these guys come in with big ideas and 9 out of 10 fail. So save the money on hosting at the start.

Once you get the site to where you are getting 5k vistors a month to the site upgraded to a VPS.

Then when you have 15k to your site a month go ahead and move into a dedicated server.

I wouldn't go out and buy a server as you will ending up spending a pretty penny on getting everything that you needs. as well as putting in a T1 line or better.

you are better off letting someone else host the site.

it's kind of hard to predict whether something is going to go viral or not but if you're expecting huge traffic, you'd better be prepared for it. if your client pays for and gets massive traffic and what that traffic sees is a slow, overloaded, or offline server, I doubt that would reflect well on you. you can always suggest he drop to a virtual account if the huge traffic doesn't come & he wants to scale back.

Would a decent CDN help in this instance using a shared server and Cloudfire?

Any other recommendations other than Hostgator or Hostwinds?

thank you!

SeattleBites said:

Any other recommendations other than Hostgator or Hostwinds?

thank you!

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Take a look at the amazon cloud. It's not the cheapest but will provide the highest availability and best scaling, as you require. It's reasonably priced IMO, without any commitment.

I think a good VPS with a very good connection would be good. You can get good ones running CentOS and with WHM/Cpanel installed. Im with a good EU company and the support is another big thing for me. For something like you describe you want a fully managed VPS so they can help you and if the need be upgrade if needed