starting small with growth in mind

Hello all,

I'm working on a web site that might totally flop or it might explode to be the next facebook/flickr/digg/etc. Since I really don't know how popular the site will be I don't want to spend a ton of money on the hardware/hosting right away but I want to be able to scale it easily if it does grow rapidly. With this in mind, what would be the best approach to launch the site?

Thanks,
Dan

Comments

[Todd Hoff]

What kind of site? For more CRUD based sites Google App Engine might be a good choice. Or Heroku.

[dan_the_coder]

I'm developing the site myself using php & mysql on apache and I want to be able to sell ad space on it. It's a type of social networking site. I don't want to get into a situation where the hosts take up space with their own ads or tell me I can't do this or that.

[dan_the_coder]

I guess I should define what I mean by "a ton of money". I don't want to buy my own hardware and T1 line right away or spend $1000+ each month on hosting. I'm ok with spending $200-$300/month to start and then more if the site is profitable.

[ikatkov]

1. host it on sharing hosting that cost you ~$4 a month.
2. should load go up, transfer to a virtual box on the same provider cost ~$40 a month
3. should load go further up transfer to a dedicated server on the same provider ~$70 a month
4. should load go up it's only then you should consider options -> continue with datacenter hosting or transfer your stuff to a cloud (EC2, RackSpace, GoGrid etc)

$200-$300/month is a lot actually, you can skip right to #3. The thing with cloud - it's not cheap, because it shines someplace else.